Hypersaline sapropels act as hotspots for microbial dark matter

• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-06232-w
• Publication Date: 2017-07-17T11:39:13Z
• Authors: Adrian-Ştefan Andrei; Andreea Baricz; Michael Scott Rob...; Manuela Raluca Pă...; Tudor Tămaş; Cecilia Chiriac; Edina Szekeres; Lucian Barbu-Tudoran; Erika Andrea Levei; Cristian Coman; Mircea Podar; Horia Leonard Banciu
• Keywords: Biogeochemical Cycle; Extremophile; Chloroflexi (class)

Present-day terrestrial analogue sites are crucial ground truth proxies for studying life in geochemical conditions close to those assumed be present on early Earth or inferred exist other celestial bodies (e.g. Mars, Europa). Although hypersaline sapropels border-of-life habitats with moderate occurrence, their microbiological and physicochemical characterization lags behind. Here, we study the diversity of under low water activity by describing prokaryotic communities from two disparate (Transylvanian Basin, Romania) relation milieu pore chemistry, while inferring role carbon cycling matching taxa known taxon-specific biogeochemical functions. The polyphasic approach combined deep coverage SSU rRNA gene amplicon sequencing bioinformatics RT-qPCR investigations. We found that developed an analogous elemental harbored prokaryotes affiliated fifty-nine phyla, among which most abundant were Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes Chloroflexi. Containing thirty-two candidate divisions possibly undocumented lineages, accommodate one diverse novel ecosystems reported date may contribute completing phylogenetic branching tree life.