Microbial Diversity in a Hypersaline Sulfate Lake: A Terrestrial Analog of Ancient Mars.

ABSTRACT: Life can persist under severe osmotic stress and low water activity in hypersaline environments. On Mars, evidence for the past presence of saline bodies of water is prevalent and resulted in the widespread deposition of sulfate and chloride salts. Here we investigate Spotted Lake (British Columbia, Canada), a hypersaline lake with extreme (>3 M) levels of sulfate salts as an exemplar of the conditions thought to be associated with ancient Mars. We provide the first characterization of microbial structure in Spotted Lake sediments through metagenomic sequencing, and report a bacteria-dominated community with abundant Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes, as well as diverse extremophiles. Microbial abundance and functional comparisons reveal similarities to Ace Lake, a meromictic A

SUBMITTER: Pontefract A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5623196 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature