Cuatro Cienegas Basin, Archean Domes Metagenomes

Cuatro Cienegas Basin is an endangered oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert with a system of ponds, rivers and springs that have been proposed as relictual sites of marine origin. This project focuses on the "Archean Domes" microbial system: a water-level fluctuating pond with seasonal development of non-lithifying, highly diverse microbial mats that build remarkable gas domes (microbially induced sedimentary structures). This collection of metagenomic data is intended to record a time series of the phylogenetic diversity, community physiology, and ecological interactions of microbial communities within the scope of microbial ecology, evolutionary biology, and astrobiology.