Changes in bacterial and archaeal communities during the concentration of brine at the graduation towers in Ciechocinek spa (Poland)

Abstract

This study evaluates the changes in bacterial and archaeal community structure during the gradual evaporation of water from the brine (extracted from subsurface Jurassic deposits) in the system of graduation towers located in Ciechocinek spa, Poland. The communities were assessed with 16S rRNA gene sequencing (MiSeq, Illumina) and microscopic methods. The microbial cell density determined by direct cell count was at the order of magnitude of 107 cells/mL. It was found that increasing salt concentration was positively correlated with both the cell counts, and species-level diversity of bacterial and archaeal communities. The archaeal community was mostly constituted by members of the phylum Euryarchaeota, class Halobacteria and was dominated by Halorubrum-related sequences. The bacterial community was more diverse, with representatives of the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes as the most abundant. The proportion of Proteobacteria decreased with increasing salt concentration, while the proportion of Bacteroidetes increased significantly in the more concentrated samples. Representatives of the genera Idiomarina, Psychroflexus, Roseovarius, and Marinobacter appeared to be tolerant to changes of salinity. During the brine concentration, the relative abundances of Sphingobium and Sphingomonas were significantly decreased and the raised contributions of genera Fabibacter and Fodinibius were observed. The high proportion of novel (not identified at 97% similarity level) bacterial reads (up to 42%) in the 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that potentially new bacterial taxa inhabit this unique environment.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00792-017-0992-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Differential Metabarcoding Approach to Describe Taxonomy Profiles of Bacteria and Archaea in the Saltern of Margherita di Savoia (Italy)

“…Members of this genus are characterized by sharing many features with archaeal cells of the family Halobacteriaceae that live in the same habitat [48]. The Psychroflexus (phylum Bacteroidota) genus has also been described in saline environments, including marine solar salterns and graduation towers [49,50]. Little is known about the "Candidatus Aquiluna" genus (phylum Actinobacteria).…”

Transient Dynamics of Archaea and Bacteria in Sediments and Brine Across a Salinity Gradient in a Solar Saltern of Goa, India

“…The diversity indices obtained from the salterns of Goa were comparable against the diversity of similar thalassohaline ecosystems like solar salterns located in USA (Youssef et al, 2012), India (Sen and Mukhopadhyay, 2019), Turkey (Çinar and Mutlu, 2016), and Spain (Gómez-Villegas et al, 2018), soda ash concentration ponds in Ethiopia (Simachew et al, 2016) and graduation towers from Poland (Kalwasińska et al, 2018). When the diversity between the two salt production phases was compared, samples from the ISH phase indicated an overall higher diversity owing to the moderately halophilic and halotolerant regime prevailing before the start of the salt production process.…”

“…The prevalence of Haloquadratum, a cosmopolitan halophilic archaeal genus in the crystallizer pans around the world (Maturrano et al, 2006;Baati et al, 2011;Ghai et al, 2011;Dillon et al, 2013) was found to be negligible (<0.3% of available reads) in Siridao salterns. Few studies have also reported the low or negligible occurrence of Haloquadratum in salterns that are very similar in operation with Siridao salterns and other hypersaline environments (Pašić et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2007;Manikandan et al, 2009;Kalwasińska et al, 2018). This may be explained by the lower level of magnesium prevalent in the saltern samples.…”

“…In the intermediate salinity samples (13–18%), bacterial phylotypes affiliated to phyla Proteobacteria , Bacteroidetes , Actinobacteria , and Verrumicrobia were usually encountered while the archaeal members belonged to genera Halorubrum , Haloarcula , and Haloquadratum (phylum Euryarchaeota ). High salinity samples (>25%) were dominated by halophilic archaea belonging to genera such as Haloquadratum and Halorubrum along with a minor contribution from bacterial phylotypes belonging to Bacteroidetes (genus Salinibacter ) ( Mouné et al, 2003 ; Pašić et al, 2005 ; Sørensen et al, 2005 ; Park et al, 2006 ; Wang et al, 2007 ; Baati et al, 2008 , 2010 ; Tsiamis et al, 2008 ; Manikandan et al, 2009 ; Oren et al, 2009 ; Oh et al, 2010 ; López-López et al, 2010 ; Zafrilla et al, 2010 ; Tkavc et al, 2011 ; Trigui et al, 2011 ; Boujelben et al, 2012 ; Dillon et al, 2013 ; Fernandez et al, 2014a , b ; Mani et al, 2015 ; Çinar and Mutlu, 2016 ; Di Meglio et al, 2016 ; Zhang et al, 2016 ; Kalwasińska et al, 2018 ; Leoni et al, 2020 ). In general, archaeal composition from the total prokaryotic community was observed to be between 27–46% at intermediate salinities (13–19%) and 80–90% at high salinities (>25%) ( Ghai et al, 2011 ; Fernandez et al, 2014a , b ).…”

Natural medicinal resources and their therapeutic applications

“…The effects of chlorides on the body during bath (osmotic) or inhalation (increasing the secretion and fluidity of mucus) are because of their reaction with sodium ions [17]. Brines are concentrated salt (sodium chloride waters) solutions, which occur widely in natural forms such as coastal lagoons, salt or soda lakes, deep-sea brines, groundwater, and salterns or saltworks of anthropogenic origin [14]. A graduation tower is a unique structure that is used to produce salt; it removes water from a saline solution by evaporation, thereby increasing the concentration of mineral salts.…”