16S rDNA metagenomes of Western Balkans glacial lakes sediments

Since the Balkan Peninsula is situated in the climatic transition between the temperate zone and Mediterranean conditions, it can be assumed that this region will become dryer and warmer in the course of global climatic change. Potential vanishing of glaciers in this part of Europe could endanger existing glacial lakes, which points to the need of conservation and biodiversity studies of this ecological niche. The studies of microbial communities in glacial lakes, especially in southeast Europe are rare and even neglected. It is well recognized that unexplored ecological niches and metabolic potential as well as new molecular frameworks of their microbial communities could be a gold mine of secondary metabolites with importance for biotechnology, medicine and pharmacy. Our goal was to assess the bacterial communities from selected Western Balkans glacial lakes. Selection of lakes was based on exposure to anthropological influences. Thus we analyzed bacterial communities from Plav lake (designated as D in the project, located in the town of Plav), Black lake (designated as C in the project, outside of human settlements but tourist attraction) and Donje Bare lake (isolated lake without significant human impact, designated as Z in the project).