Protistan community patterns within the brine and halocline of deep hypersaline anoxic basins in the eastern Mediterranean Sea
Protistan community patterns within the brine and halocline of deep hypersaline anoxic basins in the eastern Mediterranean Sea
Date
2008-10-21
Authors
Edgcomb, Virginia P.
Orsi, William D.
Leslin, Chesley
Epstein, Slava S.
Bunge, John
Jeon, Sunok
Yakimov, Michail M.
Behnke, Anke
Stoeck, Thorsten
Orsi, William D.
Leslin, Chesley
Epstein, Slava S.
Bunge, John
Jeon, Sunok
Yakimov, Michail M.
Behnke, Anke
Stoeck, Thorsten
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Keywords
Anoxic
Brine
Community structure
Deep-sea
DHAB
Hypersaline
Molecular diversity
Protists
Brine
Community structure
Deep-sea
DHAB
Hypersaline
Molecular diversity
Protists
Abstract
Environmental factors restrict the distribution of microbial eukaryotes but the
exact boundaries for eukaryotic life are not known. Here we examine protistan
communities at the extremes of salinity and osmotic pressure, and report rich
assemblages inhabiting Bannock and Discovery, two deep-sea superhaline
anoxic basins in the Mediterranean. Using a rRNA-based approach, we detected
1538 protistan rRNA gene sequences from water samples with total salinity
ranging from 39 g/kg to 280 g/Kg, and obtained evidence that this DNA was
endogenous to the extreme habitats sampled. Statistical analyses indicate that
the discovered phylotypes represent only a fraction of species actually inhabiting
both the brine and the brine-seawater interface, with as much as 82% of the
actual richness missed by our survey. Jaccard indices (e.g., for a comparison of
community membership) suggest that the brine/interface protistan communities
are unique to Bannock and Discovery basins, and share little (0.8-2.8%) in
species composition with overlying waters with typical marine salinity and oxygen
tension. The protistan communities from the basins’ brine and brine/seawater
interface appear to be particularly enriched with dinoflagellates, ciliates and other
alveolates, as well as fungi, and are conspicuously poor in stramenopiles. The
uniqueness and diversity of brine and brine-interface protistan communities make
them promising targets for protistan discovery.
Description
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Extremophiles 13 (2009): 151-167, doi:10.1007/s00792-008-0206-2.