Hypersaline sapropels act as hotspots for microbial dark matter

DNA, Bacterial Geologic Sediments 0303 health sciences Bacteroidetes Romania Science Q R Chloroflexi Sequence Analysis, DNA 15. Life on land Archaea DNA, Ribosomal Article Lakes 03 medical and health sciences 13. Climate action Proteobacteria Medicine Benzopyrans Humic Substances Phylogeny
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-06232-w Publication Date: 2017-07-17T11:39:13Z
ABSTRACT
AbstractPresent-day terrestrial analogue sites are crucial ground truth proxies for studying life in geochemical conditions close to those assumed to be present on early Earth or inferred to exist on other celestial bodies (e.g. Mars, Europa). Although hypersaline sapropels are border-of-life habitats with moderate occurrence, their microbiological and physicochemical characterization lags behind. Here, we study the diversity of life under low water activity by describing the prokaryotic communities from two disparate hypersaline sapropels (Transylvanian Basin, Romania) in relation to geochemical milieu and pore water chemistry, while inferring their role in carbon cycling by matching taxa to known taxon-specific biogeochemical functions. The polyphasic approach combined deep coverage SSU rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and bioinformatics with RT-qPCR and physicochemical investigations. We found that sapropels developed an analogous elemental milieu and harbored prokaryotes affiliated with fifty-nine phyla, among which the most abundant were Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Chloroflexi. Containing thirty-two candidate divisions and possibly undocumented prokaryotic lineages, the hypersaline sapropels were found to accommodate one of the most diverse and novel ecosystems reported to date and may contribute to completing the phylogenetic branching of the tree of life.
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