Metagenomics insights into Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity of Halophilic Communities inhabiting solar saltern in North Sinai, Egypt. undefined

In tropical and subtropical areas around the world, Solar Salterns are artificial shallow ponds used to manufacture halite (NaCl) from seawater. Multi-pond systems are commonly used to make them. Saline environments ranging from intermediate to hyper-saline water (brine) and sediment, the later are characteristic of solar saltern in North Sinai. Metagenomics by 16S rRNA Illumina amplicon sequencing and bioinformatical analysis was used to explore the microbial diversity of Solar Saltern and the halophilic communities were characterized. A total of 237,899 (brine) and 59,680 (sediment) reads were collected. A microbiome featuring Archaea was discovered using 16S rRNA sequencing (20% from brine and 0.28% from sediment) The domain Archaea (20%) comprising phylum Euryarchaeota (19.9%) was the most abundant, followed by Crenarchaeota (0.02%) and Thaumarchaeota (0.01%), while domain Eubacteria (13.37%) included phylum Proteobacteria (4.5%), Bacteroidetes (3.7%), Actinobacteria (3.4%), and Firmicutes (3.3%). Eukarya was (1.68%) and unclassified (64.23%). In sediment Bacteria and Eukarya diversity higher than those in brine was (47.8%) and (3.38%) respectively, domain Archaea was (0.28%) and unclassified (48.23%). The study of halophilic microorganisms in solar saltern sheds light on species that contribute to the ecosystem's biogeochemical cycles. This study presents a first snapshot for halophilic communities in a hypersaline environment in north Sinai.