Salty, Alkali-Laced Tales (Mostly True) from the Great Basin Desert, California and Nevada

Oremland, Ronald S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-63512-1_31

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Past microbiological studies of BSL focused on incubation experiments, fluorometry and isolation of a small number of strains (Axler et al, 1978;Bywaters et al, 2010;Iversen et al, 1987;Matsubara et al, 2017;McCann et al, 2017;Oremland, 1983Oremland, , 2021aOremland, , 2021bOremland et al, 1982;Smith & Oremland, 1987). For example, McCann et al (2017) isolated a Ectothiorhodospira strain that grows using As(III) as sole electron donor for anoxygenic photosynthesis, and Matsubara et al (2017) isolated multiple perchlorate-resistant halophiles from the lake.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Big Soda Lake (BSL) and Little Soda Lake (LSL) are two adjacent soda lakes inside volcanic craters, located in the US Great Basin, Nevada, USA (Figure 1A–C). BSL, in particular, presents a unique combination of features that inspired investigations into its geology, biogeochemistry and microbiology (Bywaters et al, 2010; Cloern et al, 1983a, 1983b; Hutchinson, 1937; Iversen et al, 1987; Kharaka et al, 1984; Kimmel et al, 1978; Matsubara et al, 2017; McCann et al, 2017; Oremland, 2013, 2021a, 2021b; Rosen et al, 2021). BSL's water column is salinity‐stratified and meromictic (Kimmel et al, 1978), with a sharp halocline/pycnocline currently at around 45 m depth separating the mixolimnion from the underlying monimolimnion (Kharaka et al, 1984).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Microbiology of Big Soda Lake, a multi‐extreme meromictic volcanic crater lake in the Nevada desert

Soufi,

Tran,

Louca

2024

Environmental Microbiology

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Big Soda Lake, Nevada, is a multi‐extreme meromictic lake, whose hypersaline hyperalkaline bottom waters feature permanent anoxia and high concentrations of arsenic, sulphide and ammonia. These properties make Big Soda Lake—and the adjacent Little Soda Lake—a fascinating system for exploring life's boundaries, discovering novel microbial taxa and identifying biotechnologically useful strains. To date, the taxonomic diversity and metabolic capabilities of microorganisms in this system remain largely unknown. Here, we fill this gap using microbiome surveys across the Big and Little Soda Lake water columns, including 16S rRNA sequencing, fungal ITS2 sequencing and gene‐ and genome‐resolved metagenomics. We accompany these surveys with measurements of salinity, pH, temperature, oxygen, ammonium and ammonia concentrations. Our analyses reveal rich bacterial communities, taxonomically and functionally differentiated along Big Soda Lake's oxycline and, to lesser extent, between lakes. Fungal communities were dominated by a small number of families, while nearly no archaea were detected. Pathways related to perchlorate reduction, anoxygenic phototrophy, fermentation, dissimilatory metabolism of arsenite/arsenate, sulphur compounds, nitrogen compounds and hydrogen, were particularly prevalent. A total of 129 high‐quality bacterial and archaeal metagenome‐assembled genomes (completeness ≥ 80%, contamination ≤ 5%) were recovered, yielding insight into the taxonomic distribution of microbial metabolic pathways.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbiology of Big Soda Lake, a multi‐extreme meromictic volcanic crater lake in the Nevada desert

Soufi,

Tran,

Louca

2024

Environmental Microbiology

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Got acetylene: a personal research retrospective

Oremland

2021

FEMS Microbes

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In research, sometimes sheer happenstance and serendipity make for an unexpected discovery. Once revealed and if interesting enough, such a finding and its follow-up investigations can lead to advances by others that leave its originators ‘scooped’ and mulling about what next to do with their unpublished data. Specifically what journals could it still be published in and be perceived as original. This is what occurred with us nearly 40 years ago with regard to our follow-up observations of acetylene fermentation and led us to concoct a ‘cock and bull’ story. We hypothesized about a plausible role for acetylene metabolism in the primordial biogeochemistry of Earth and the possibility of acetylene serving as a key life-sustaining substrate for alien microbes dwelling in the orbs of the outer solar system. With the passage of time advances were made in whole genome sequencing coupled with major in silico progress in bioinformatics. In parallel came the results of explorations of the outer solar system (i.e. the Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons). It now appears that these somewhat harebrained ideas of ours, arisen at first out of a sense of desperation, actually ring true in fact, and particularly well in song: “Tell a tale of cock and bull, Of convincing detail full Tale tremendous, Heav'n defend us! What a tale of cock and bull!” From ‘Yeoman of the Guard’ by Gilbert & Sullivan.

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Salty, Alkali-Laced Tales (Mostly True) from the Great Basin Desert, California and Nevada

Cited by 2 publications

References 55 publications

Microbiology of Big Soda Lake, a multi‐extreme meromictic volcanic crater lake in the Nevada desert

Microbiology of Big Soda Lake, a multi‐extreme meromictic volcanic crater lake in the Nevada desert

Got acetylene: a personal research retrospective

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