Microbial stratification and seasonal dynamics in hypersaline anaerobic sediments of solar salterns

The present study investigates the microbial community structure and potential metabolisms in S'Avall hypersaline sediments. The S'Avall salterns, located in Mallorca (Balearic Islands), have saline concentrations close to saturation (about 37% w/v). Here, we have used shotgun metagenomics and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to study the community composition and changes along space and time, as well as to reveal the metabolic diversity of the Metagenome Assembled Genomes (MAGs), especially focusing on the methanogenic prokaryotes.