Divergence and phylogeny of Firmicutes from the Cuatro Cienegas Basin, Mexico: a window to an ancient ocean.

ABSTRACT: The Cuatro Ciénegas Basin (CCB) has been identified as a center of endemism for many life-forms. Nearly half the bacterial species found in the spring systems have their closest relatives in the ocean. This raises the question of whether the high diversity observed today is the product of an adaptive radiation similar to that of the Galapagos Islands or whether the bacterial groups are "survivors" of an ancient sea, which would be of interest for astrobiology. To help answer this question, we focused on Firmicutes from Cuatro Ciénegas (mainly Bacillus and Exiguobacterium). We reconstructed the phylogenetic relationships of Firmicutes with 28 housekeeping genes and dated the resulting tree using geological events as calibration points. Our results show that marine Bacillus diverged from oth

SUBMITTER: Moreno-Letelier A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3426897 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature