{"id":967,"date":"2018-01-30T03:45:50","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T03:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.sjp.ac.lk\/zoo\/?p=967"},"modified":"2018-02-06T04:09:40","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T04:09:40","slug":"microbial-diversity-of-hypersaline-sediments-from-lake-lucero-playa-in-white-sands-national-monument-new-mexico-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/science.sjp.ac.lk\/zoo\/2018\/01\/30\/microbial-diversity-of-hypersaline-sediments-from-lake-lucero-playa-in-white-sands-national-monument-new-mexico-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Microbial Diversity of Hypersaline Sediments from Lake Lucero Playa in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, USA."},"content":{"rendered":"

Authors: Kosala Ayantha Sirisena<\/a>, Steven Ramirez, Andrew Steele, Mihaela Glamoclija
\nJournal: Microbial Ecology<\/em><\/p>\n

Lake Lucero is a gypsum-rich, hypersaline, ephemeral playa located on the southern part of the Alkali Flat at the White Sands National Monument (WSNM), New Mexico, USA. This modern playa setting provides a dynamic extreme environment that changes from a freshwater lake to a hypersaline dry desert during the year. We investigated the microbial diversity (bacteria, archaea, and microbial eukaryotes) of the Lake Lucero sediments using 16S- and 18S-based amplicon sequencing approach and explored the diversity patterns in different geochemical microenvironments. Our results indicated that similar microbial communities, in particular bacterial communities colonized, were remarkably consistent across our depth profiles. Therefore, these communities show a first-order relevance on the environmental conditions (moisture content, oxygen content, and mineral composition). We found that\u00a0Proteobacteria<\/em>,\u00a0Actinobacteria<\/em>,\u00a0Bacteroidetes<\/em>,\u00a0Firmicutes<\/em>, and\u00a0Gemmatimonadetes<\/em>\u00a0were the major bacterial phyla, while\u00a0Cyanobacteria<\/em>\u00a0were present in relatively low abundances and appeared only at the surface. Genus level assessment reflected that\u00a0Truepera<\/em>,\u00a0Delftia<\/em>, and\u00a0Pseudomonas<\/em>\u00a0were the predominant bacterial genera across all samples.\u00a0Euryarchaeota<\/em>\u00a0was the major archaeal phylum in all the samples, while\u00a0Candidatus Halobonum<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Candidatus Nitrososphaera<\/em>\u00a0were the main genera. Diatoms were the dominant eukaryotic group in surface samples and\u00a0Fungi<\/em>,\u00a0Ciliophora<\/em>,\u00a0Metazoa<\/em>, and\u00a0Nematodes<\/em>\u00a0were the other major groups. As expected, metabolic inference indicated that aerobic microbial communities were near surface colonizers, with anaerobic communities dominating with increasing depth. We demonstrated that\u00a0these microbial communities could be used to characterize unique geochemical microenvironments enabling us to extrapolate these results into other terrestrial and possibly extraterrestrial environments with comparable geochemical characteristics.<\/p>\n