“…Many types of halophilic bacteria have been isolated from the Dead Sea, inland salt lakes or subterranean waters in oilfields (Oren, 1992 ;Ollivier et al, 1994 ;Rainey et al, 1995 ;Imhoff & Siilling, 1996 ;Ravot et al, 1997). Some of them were isolated from thalassohaline environments such as solar salterns ; they include phototrophic bacteria of the family Chromatiaceae (Caumette et al, 1988(Caumette et al, , 1991a(Caumette et al, , 1997, sulfate-reducing bacteria (Caumette et al, 1991 b) and fermentative bacteria (Zhilina & Zavarzin, 1990 ;Zhilina et al, 1991aZhilina et al, , b, 1992Liaw & Mah, 1992;Simankova et al, 1993). During ecological investigations in solar salterns of the French Mediterranean coast (Salin-de-Giraud, Camargue, Rhiine Delta), we isolated several new species of phototrophs and sulfate reducers that developed at the sediment surface of certain hypersaline ponds characterized by gypsum deposits and (Caumette, 1993 ;Caumette et al, 1994).…”