Microbial communities in hypersaline wetlands of evaporitic basins – biological diversity and interlinked ecosystem functions
Research areas: Zoology: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
Principal investigators: Prof. Dr. Patrick Fink
Project Info: Phase 3
CRC 1211 aims to understand mechanisms of co-evolution of organisms and Earth’s surface systems in the driest ,non-polar deserts with a focus on the Atacama Desert. These deserts are not only extremely dry environments, but also harbour unique salt flat environments that were formed by the evaporation of ancient lakes, leaving behind hypersaline wetlands, called salars. Some salars have freshwater springs with water low in dissolved ions.
This fresh water quickly dissolves salts from the salt flat, creating steep salinity gradients that pose an extreme evolutionary adaptation pressure for the organisms inhabiting those systems. This project therefore specifically aims at understanding the impact of salinity on communities of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms and its consequences on microbial processes that influence mineralisation in the salars. We combine metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses of the microbial communities of several salars along their respective salinity gradients
Our unique and for this geographical region unprecedented approach of combining metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses will yield taxon-specific and cross-taxon conserved evolutionary adaptations to survival in extreme environments as well as functional shifts in microbial communities in response to increasing salinity. We expect changes in salinity to influence the microbial communities directly by favouring organisms adapted to the respective conditions, as well as indirectly by changing pressures through a shift in biotic interactions.
Overall, this project will improve our understanding how salinity impacts the communities of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms and what consequences this has on microbial processes that influence mineralisation.
