Bacterial Communities of Three Saline Meromictic Lakes in Central Asia

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 2;11(3):e0150847. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150847. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Meromictic lakes located in landlocked steppes of central Asia (~2500 km inland) have unique geophysiochemical characteristics compared to other meromictic lakes. To characterize their bacteria and elucidate relationships between those bacteria and surrounding environments, water samples were collected from three saline meromictic lakes (Lakes Shira, Shunet and Oigon) in the border between Siberia and the West Mongolia, near the center of Asia. Based on in-depth tag pyrosequencing, bacterial communities were highly variable and dissimilar among lakes and between oxic and anoxic layers within individual lakes. Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes were the most abundant phyla, whereas three genera of purple sulfur bacteria (a novel genus, Thiocapsa and Halochromatium) were predominant bacterial components in the anoxic layer of Lake Shira (~20.6% of relative abundance), Lake Shunet (~27.1%) and Lake Oigon (~9.25%), respectively. However, few known green sulfur bacteria were detected. Notably, 3.94% of all sequencing reads were classified into 19 candidate divisions, which was especially high (23.12%) in the anoxic layer of Lake Shunet. Furthermore, several hydro-parameters (temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, H2S and salinity) were associated (P< 0.05) with variations in dominant bacterial groups. In conclusion, based on highly variable bacterial composition in water layers or lakes, we inferred that the meromictic ecosystem was characterized by high diversity and heterogenous niches.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Asia
  • Bacteria / genetics*
  • Biodiversity
  • Hydrogen Sulfide / analysis
  • Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
  • Hydrology
  • Lakes / analysis*
  • Lakes / microbiology*
  • Oxygen / analysis
  • Phylogeny
  • Salinity*
  • Temperature

Substances

  • Oxygen
  • Hydrogen Sulfide

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the thematic project funding of Taiwan-Russian Joint Project (NSC99- 2923-B-001-001-MY3 and NSC 102-2923-B-001-004) and Taiwan-Mongolian Joint Project (NSC101-2923-B-001-003-MY3) from the National Sciences Council of Taiwan and Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant No. 14-04-01060-a.