Microbial communities in hypersaline wetlands of evaporitic basins – biological diversity and interlinked ecosystem functions

Since July 2026 we are officially part of the Critical Zone Cluster within the CRC and would like to briefly present ourselves and our research.

Prof. Dr. Patrick Fink (Ecology Professor at the University of Cologne) and Dr. Tarja Hoffmeyer (the postdoctoral researcher in the project) are working together with the Chilean collaborator Assistant Prof. Dr. Pablo Aguilar at Universidad de Antofagasta.

For our project, we are investigating layered microbial mats that occur in saline lakes (lagunas) within salt flats (salars) in the Atacama Desert. We are focussing on salinity gradients forming in between a freshwater source and a saline laguna. Along these gradients we are sampling microbial mats, separate the layers on site and preserve them. We are planning to sequence the metagenome of the bacteria to identify contributors to mineralisation and the metatranscriptome of the eukaryotes to investigate the impact of biotic interactions in relation to salinity adaptation and mineralisation.

In March 2026 we joined a sampling campaign of the Critical Zone Cluster in preparation of our project (separate report) and took first samples at Salar de Huasco. We are very happy to now take part in the interdisciplinary research of the CRC.