Microbial Characterization of Jazan Sabkha in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Prokaryotic diversity of the Jazan sabkha, Saudi Arabia was investigated by using culture dependent techniques and 454 pyrosequencing. While representatives of the Salinibacteraceae and Rubidibacteraceae families were the predominant groups within bacterial community, comprising the 38.4% and 33.0% of all bacterial OTUs (respectively), archaeal community was dominated by the members of the Halobacteriaceae family, constituting 92.8% of all archaeal reads. Salinibacter and Halorhabdus were the most represented known bacterial and archaeal phylotypes in the community. The novel archaeal phylogroups appeared to be dominant, which made up 71.6% of all archaeal reads. Representatives of the bacterial phyla Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria were cultured (Arhodomonas, Halobacillus, Virgibacillus, Halomonas, Actinopolyspora, Tamilnaduibacter). Haloarchaeal strains belonging to the genera Haloferax and Halogeometricum were isolated as well. Diversity and species richness of archaeal assemblages were higher than those of bacterial assemblages, revealed with rarefaction analysis and diversity indices.