Characterization of the Microbial Population Inhabiting a Solar Saltern Pond of the Odiel Marshlands (SW Spain)

Abstract

The solar salterns located in the Odiel marshlands, in southwest Spain, are an excellent example of a hypersaline environment inhabited by microbial populations specialized in thriving under conditions of high salinity, which remains poorly explored. Traditional culture-dependent taxonomic studies have usually under-estimated the biodiversity in saline environments due to the difficulties that many of these species have to grow at laboratory conditions. Here we compare two molecular methods to profile the microbial population present in the Odiel saltern hypersaline water ponds (33% salinity). On the one hand, the construction and characterization of two clone PCR amplified-16S rRNA libraries, and on the other, a high throughput 16S rRNA sequencing approach based on the Illumina MiSeq platform. The results reveal that both methods are comparable for the estimation of major genera, although massive sequencing provides more information about the less abundant ones. The obtained data indicate that Salinibacter ruber is the most abundant genus, followed by the archaea genera, Halorubrum and Haloquadratum. However, more than 100 additional species can be detected by Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). In addition, a preliminary study to test the biotechnological applications of this microbial population, based on its ability to produce and excrete haloenzymes, is shown.

Antioxidant, Antimicrobial, and Bioactive Potential of Two New Haloarchaeal Strains Isolated from Odiel Salterns (Southwest Spain)

“…Halocin activity was determined by observing growth inhibition of the archaea Haloferax lucetense (CECT 5871), which was purchased from CECT (Spanish Collection of Culture Type, Valencia, Spain) and whose susceptibility to the halocin activity of the species inhabiting Odiel salterns was previously probed [ 25 ]. H. lucetense was grown on the medium specified by the CECT (MHE 25 Medium; CECT 188), and 1 mL of the culture was completely spread across the surface of a Petri dish.…”

Transient Dynamics of Archaea and Bacteria in Sediments and Brine Across a Salinity Gradient in a Solar Saltern of Goa, India

“…The diversity indices obtained from the salterns of Goa were comparable against the diversity of similar thalassohaline ecosystems like solar salterns located in USA (Youssef et al, 2012), India (Sen and Mukhopadhyay, 2019), Turkey (Çinar and Mutlu, 2016), and Spain (Gómez-Villegas et al, 2018), soda ash concentration ponds in Ethiopia (Simachew et al, 2016) and graduation towers from Poland (Kalwasińska et al, 2018). When the diversity between the two salt production phases was compared, samples from the ISH phase indicated an overall higher diversity owing to the moderately halophilic and halotolerant regime prevailing before the start of the salt production process.…”

Comparative diversity analysis of halophiles at two polar saltern systems in Indramayu, West Java, Indonesia

“…In contrast, in the Ttsystem pond, genera Haloplanus, Halorientalis, Haloferax, Haloarcula and Halorubrum were dominant in addition to Salinigranum, a halophilic bacteria. Those genera were also identified to be present as general microbes in the saline environment (Oren et al 1995;Yang et al 2007;Hedi et al 2009;Oh et al 2010;Deng et al 2015;Najjari et al 2015;Naghoni et al 2017;G omez-Villegas et al 2018;Plominsky et al 2018;Barreteau et al 2019).…”

“…To date, rigorous studies have been conducted on the community of high-salinity environments. The role of halophilic organisms, that is, Archaean, has been reported in several salt systems across the globe (Oh et al 2010;Carpa et al 2014;Deng et al 2015;Plominsky et al 2018;G omez-Villegas et al 2018). Many other studies of saline environments inhabitants, such as in salt lakes (Oren et al 1995;Yang et al 2007;Hedi et al 2009;Najjari et al 2015;Naghoni et al 2017; Barreteau et al 2019), and commercial salt both from rock salt as well as salt from seawater (Gibtan et al 2017;Cho et al 2018) have been well documented.…”

“…2018; Gómez‐Villegas et al . 2018). Many other studies of saline environments inhabitants, such as in salt lakes (Oren et al .…”