Insights into the Thermophile Diversity in Hot Springs of Pakistan

Abstract

The hot springs are populated by mesophilic, thermotolerant, and hyperthermophilic bacteria. These populations are diverse, and some of them show combinations of other extreme conditions, for example, acidic, alkaline, high pressure, and high concentrations of salts and heavy metals. Anaerobes inhabiting hot springs are considered to be the closest living descendants of the earliest living forms on earth, and their study offers understandings about the origin and evolution of life. In this chapter, thermal spring bacterial diversity from Pakistani ecology is reviewed. The bacterial populations in Pakistani hydrothermal vent environments showed a great genetic diversity, and most members of these populations appeared to be uncultivated and unidentified organisms. Analysis suggested that some microorganisms of novel phylotypes predicted by molecular phylogenetic analysis were likely present in thermal spring environments. Libraries were predominantly composed of rare phylotypes that appeared to be unclassified, and the number and type of phylotypes observed were correlated with biogeography as well as biogeochemistry. These findings broaden our opinion of the genetic diversity of bacteria in hot water spring environments. The global-scale bacterial diversity of other hot water spring environments, on the other hand, may be beyond present proficiencies for authentic study.