Anaerobic halo- alkaliphilic bacterial community of athalassic, hypersaline Mono lake and Owens Lake in California

Abstract

ABSTRACT The bacterial diversity of microbial extremophiles from the meromictic, hypersaline MonoLake and a small evaporite pool in Owens Lake of California was studied. In spite of these regions had differing mineral background and different concentrations of NaC1 in water they contain the same halo- alkaliphilic anaerobic bacterial community. Three new species of bacteria were detectedin this community: primary anaerobe, dissipotrophic saccharolytic spirochete Spirochaeta americana strain ASpG1T, primary anaerobe which is proteolytic Tindallia californiensis strain p0T andsecondary anaerobe, hydrogen using Desulfonatronum thiodismutans strain MLF1T, which issulfate- reducer with chemo-litho-autotrophic metabolism. All of these bacteria are obligatealkaliphiles and dependent upon Na ions and CO32 ions in growth medium. It is interesting that closest relationships for two of these species were isolates from samples of equatorial African soda Magadi lake: Spirochaeta americana T has 99.4 % similarity on 1 65 rDNA- analyses with