Proto-dolomite formation in microbial consortia dominated by Halomonas strains

The objectives of this study were to assess the ability of two microbial consortia to form dolomite using enrichment culture experiments, mineralogy, and metagenomics. Different culturing experiments of pure cultures provided evidence for the microbial role in dolomite formation. However, the culturing experiments have been limited in scope and do not fully address the possible interactions of the naturally occurring microbial communities; consequently, the ability of microbes as a community to form dolomite. Our experiments focused on investigating microbial composition as affected by microbial community interactions through culturing aerobic heterotrophs from the top hypersaline sediments of Al-Khiran sabkha in Kuwait, a modern dolomite-forming environment.