Prokaryotic community diversity in the sediments of saline lagoons and its resistance to seasonal disturbances by water level cycles

Abstract

Purpose Apart from having high concentrations of salt, some natural saline wetlands also go through cyclical fluctuations in water level. They are frequently considered vulnerable habitats. In the last decades, the reduction of rainfall in many areas, coupled with fertilizer overuse, is transforming wetlands, especially in climates with a pronounced dry season. We studied a seasonally flooded saline wetland, and focused on the changes in the microbial communities. Methods High-throughput sequencing was used to explore the diversity and structure of the prokaryotic communities present in the surface sediments. A water and soil salinity gradient along different lagoons in the wetland complex was observed. Results Salinity affected both microbial richness and composition. The highest microbial richness was observed in lagoons with lower salinity. Statistical analysis suggests that the differences in community composition were associated with differences in salinity level, although an anthropic disturbance (increasing levels of soil organic matter, SOM) that was present predominantly in one lagoon also had a noticeable effect. Sorting of samples using beta diversity distances revealed that differences among communities were due to the distinct habitats, that is, a lagoon's salinity and SOM, not water level cycles. Differences between flooded and dry-out seasons were also explored and the linear model showed that only a small number of OTUs (2.5%) had statistical differences between seasons. Conclusion Our findings will help in understanding the effects that both salinity and drying-out periods, which are increasing problems worldwide, may have on microbial communities and their resistance to seasonal fluctuations in water levels.

Organic Matter and Total Nitrogen Lead to Different Microbial Community Structure in Sediments Between Lagoon and Surrounding Areas by Regulating Xenococcus Abundance

“…The results revealed that Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes and Planctomycetes are the dominant taxa, followed by Spirochaetae, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria and Verrucomicrobia ( Cadena et al, 2019 ). Sáenz de Miera et al (2021) collected sediments from four lagoons of Spain, including Barillos, Salina Grande, Villarrin and Villalpando. Proteobacteria was identified as the most abundant phylum in all lagoons, except for Grande, where Chloroflexi was more abundant than Proteobacteria despite insignificant differences.…”

“…More insights in the microbial community are critical for understanding the functions of lagoon ecosystem. For instance, Sáenz de Miera et al (2021) reported that the seasonal disturbance of water level cycles is the major determinant of microbial community structure in sediments of saline lagoons located in the northwest of Spain. Ben Salem et al (2019) revealed bacterial community assemblages in sediments under high anthropogenic pressure at Bizerte Lagoon hydrological system, Tunisia.…”

Different Responses of Bacteria and Archaea to Environmental Variables in Brines of the Mahai Potash Mine, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

“…The investigation of microorganisms in hypersaline settings has garnered significant interest from scientists. The majority of studies on the microbial ecology of hypersaline habitats have concentrated on saline soils, saline lakes and solar salterns [ 6 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. As an important representative of the hypersaline environment, microbial patterns within the high-altitude salt mine aquatic ecosystems have received less attention [ 16 ].…”

Microbial community structure and shift pattern of industry brine after a long-term static storage in closed tank

“…In recent years, the diversity of microorganisms in various hypersaline environments has been studied, but these studies have mainly focused on saline lakes, solar salterns, saline soils (Ben Abdallah et al, 2018;Gomez-Villegas et al, 2018;Bachran et al, 2019;Couto-Rodríguez and Montalvo-Rodríguez, 2019;Nan et al, 2020;Sáenz de Miera et al, 2021). It is worth noting that salt mine, a unique habitat formed tens of millions of years ago, is also an important representative of the hypersaline environment (Chen et al, 2019).…”