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. 2022 May 13;12(1):7939.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-12046-2.

Disentangling the lifestyle of bacterial communities in tropical soda lakes

Simone R Cotta  1 , Thierry A Pellegrinetti  1 , Ana Paula D Andreote  1 , Juliana S Costa  1 , Hugo Sarmento  2 , Marli F Fiore  3
Affiliations

Disentangling the lifestyle of bacterial communities in tropical soda lakes

Simone R Cotta et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Microbial lifestyles may reveal niche-specific signatures and can contribute to detecting the effects of abiotic fluctuations on biogeochemical cycles. Microorganisms make a tradeoff between optimizing nutrient uptake, improving biomass yield, and overcoming environmental changes according to environmental hostility. Soda lakes are natural environments rich in carbonate and bicarbonate water, resulting in elevated pH and salinities that frequently approach saturation. We hypothesized that during the dry period (elevated pH and salinity), microorganisms try to overcome this harshness by allocating energy to the cellular maintenance process. As these environmental conditions improve during the wet period, microorganisms will begin to invest in nutrient uptake. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated four soda lakes in two different seasons by applying metagenomics combined with flow cytometry (estimate heterotrophic bacterial biomass). The natural occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms in some lakes is the main driver of carbon. These primary producers provide organic carbon that supports heterotrophic bacterial growth and, consequently, a high biomass yield. Under harsh conditions (dry season), cyanobacteria invest in nutrient uptake mechanisms, whereas heterotrophic bacteria allocate energy to survive at the expense of biomass yield. Lakes without cyanobacteria blooms invest in nutrient uptake independent of environmental hostility. This study clarifies the microbial tradeoffs in hostile environments and the impact of this choice on carbon and energy flux in tropical alkaline lakes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) of shallow alkaline lakes. The letter (A) corresponds to the dry season, while the letter (B) corresponds to the wet season.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The differential abundances of bacterial groups associated with seasonality per lake. It was represented only in the groups whose abundance differed significantly between the harvest period (p < 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The correlation plot between abiotic parameters with differential abundant groups. The blue squares represent positive correlations, and the red squares represent the negative correlations. The white squares represent the absence of significant correlation (p < 0.05). The letter (A) corresponds to the dry period, while the letter (B) corresponds to the wet period.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Heatmap of the number of traits affiliated with each life strategy. The letters D and W represent samples from the dry and wet seasons, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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