Intermediate-Salinity Systems at High Altitudes in the Peruvian Andes Unveil a High Diversity and Abundance of Bacteria and Viruses.

ABSTRACT: Intermediate-salinity environments are distributed around the world. Here, we present a snapshot characterization of two Peruvian thalassohaline environments at high altitude, Maras and Acos, which provide an excellent opportunity to increase our understanding of these ecosystems. The main goal of this study was to assess the structure and functional diversity of the communities of microorganisms in an intermediate-salinity environment, and we used a metagenomic shotgun approach for this analysis. These Andean hypersaline systems exhibited high bacterial diversity and abundance of the phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Balneolaeota, and Actinobacteria; in contrast, Archaea from the phyla Euryarchaeota, Thaumarchaeota, and Crenarchaeota<

SUBMITTER: Castelan-Sanchez HG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6895999 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature