Bacterial and archaeal profiling of hypersaline microbial mats

In this work, we characterized the bacterial and archaeal composition of five microbial communities developing at different salinities in Exportadora de Sal, S.A., Guerrero Negro and from a natural hypersaline ecosystem at Laguna San Ignacio in Baja California Sur, Mexico, analyzed by 16S rRNA 454 sequencing of the V6 through V9 hypervariable regions. We also evaluated the response of the microbial community to artificial changes of salinity and sulfate concentrations; and the addition of trimethylamine as methanogenic substrate. The microbial composition was distinctive for each hypersaline environment. This study reports for a first time the presence of methanogens of the Thermoplasmata Class for hypersaline environments and contributes to the diversity of the recently new archaeal phyla Woesearchaeota, Diapherotrities, Aenigmarchaeota, Thaumarchaeota and Aigarchaeota from hypersaline ecosystems.