Título: Biodiversity of Archaea and floral of two inland saltern ecosystems in the Alto Vinalopó Valley, Spain
Autores: Zafrilla Requena, Basilio
Martínez Espinosa, Rosa María
Alonso Vargas, María Ángeles
Bonete Pérez, María José
Fecha: 2013-10-11
2013-10-11
2010-10-13
Publicador: RUA Docencia
Fuente:
Tipo: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Tema: Biodiversity
Archaea
Flora
Inland solar salterns
Alto Vinalopó Valley
Bioquímica y Biología Molecular
Botánica
Descripción: Background. The extraction of salt from seawater by means of coastal solar salterns is a very well-described process. Moreover, the characterization of these environments from ecological, biochemical and microbiological perspectives has become a key focus for many research groups all over the world over the last 20 years. In countries such as Spain, there are several examples of coastal solar salterns (mainly on the Mediterranean coast) and inland solar salterns, from which sodium chloride is obtained for human consumption. However, studies focused on the characterization of inland solar salterns are scarce and both the archaeal diversity and the plant communities inhabiting these environments remain poorly described. Results. Two of the inland solar salterns (termed Redonda and Penalva), located in the Alto Vinalopó Valley (Alicante, Spain), were characterized regarding their geological and physico-chemical characteristics and their archaeal and botanical biodiversity. A preliminary eukaryotic diversity survey was also performed using saline water. The chemical characterization of the brine has revealed that the salted groundwater extracted to fill these inland solar salterns is thalassohaline. The plant communities living in this environment are dominated by Sarcocornia fruticosa (L.) A.J. Scott, Arthrocnemum macrostachyum (Moris) K. Koch, Suaeda vera Forsk. ex Gmelin (Amaranthaceae) and several species of Limonium (Mill) and Tamarix (L). Archaeal diversity was analyzed and compared by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based molecular phylogenetic techniques. Most of the sequences recovered from environmental DNA samples are affiliated with haloarchaeal genera such as Haloarcula, Halorubrum, Haloquadratum and Halobacterium, and with an unclassified member of the Halobacteriaceae. The eukaryote Dunaliella was also present in the samples. Conclusions. To our knowledge, this study constitutes the first analysis centered on inland solar salterns located in the southeastern region of Spain. The results obtained revealed that the salt deposits of this region have marine origins. Plant communities typical of salt marshes are present in this ecosystem and members of the Halobacteriaceae family can be easily detected in the microbial populations of these habitats. Possible origins of the haloarchaea detected in this study are discussed.
Financial support was obtained from grants CGL2008-05056 (MICINN-Spain), GRE08-P01, BIO2008-00082 (MICINN-Spain, Fondos FEDER) and VIGROB-016 (Universidad de Alicante).
Idioma: Inglés

Artículos similares:

Choosing the correct paradigm for unknown words in rule-based machine translation systems por Sánchez Cartagena, Víctor Manuel,Esplà Gomis, Miquel,Sánchez Martínez, Felipe,Pérez Ortiz, Juan Antonio
Using external sources of bilingual information for on-the-fly word alignment por Esplà Gomis, Miquel,Sánchez Martínez, Felipe,Forcada Zubizarreta, Mikel L.
10