High diversity and isolated distribution of aquatic heterotrophic protists in salars of the Atacama Desert at different salinities

In this study, various hypersaline lakes (salars, 1-348 PSU) as well as further aquatic ecosystems of northern Chile were investigated regarding diversity of heterotrophic protists by metabarcoding studies of surface water samples. Investigations of genotypes of 18S rRNA genes showed a unique community composition in nearly each salar and even among different microhabitats within one salar. The genotype distribution showed no clear connection to the composition of main ions at the sampling sites, but protist communities from similar salinity ranges (either hypersaline, hyposaline or mesosaline) clustered together regarding their OTU composition. Salars appeared to be fairly isolated systems with only little exchange of protist communities where evolutionary lineages could separately evolve.PMID:37245304 | DOI:10.1016/j.ejop.2023.125987
Source: European Journal of Protistology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Source Type: research