High genetic diversity and novelty in eukaryotic plankton assemblages inhabiting saline lakes in the Qaidam basin.

ABSTRACT: Saline lakes are intriguing ecosystems harboring extremely productive microbial communities in spite of their extreme environmental conditions. We performed a comprehensive analysis of the genetic diversity (18S rRNA gene) of the planktonic microbial eukaryotes (nano- and picoeukaryotes) in six different inland saline lakes located in the Qaidam Basin. The novelty level are high, with about 11.23% of the whole dataset showing <90% identity to any previously reported sequence in GenBank. At least 4 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in mesosaline lakes, while up to eighteen OTUs in hypersaline lakes show very low CCM and CEM scores, indicating that these sequences are highly distantly related to any existing sequence. Most of the 18S rRNA gene sequence reads obtained in investigated mesosal

SUBMITTER: Wang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4234628 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature