Living to the High Extreme: Unraveling the Composition, Structure, and Functional Insights of Bacterial Communities Thriving in the Arsenic-Rich Salar de Huasco Altiplanic Ecosystem
Juan Castro‐Severyn, Coral Pardo-Esté, Katterinne N. Mendez, Jonathan Fortt, Sebastián Márquez, Franck Molina, Eduardo Castro‐Nallar, Francisco Remonsellez, Claudia P. Saavedra
Abstract
As microbial communities inhabiting extreme environments are fundamental for maintaining ecosystems, many studies concerning composition, functionality, and interactions have been carried out. However, much is still unknown. Here, we sampled microbial communities in the Salar de Huasco, an extreme environment subjected to several abiotic stresses (high UV radiation, salinity and arsenic; low pressure and temperatures). We found that although microbes are taxonomically diverse, functional potential seems to have an important degree of convergence, suggesting high levels of adaptation. Particularly, arsenic metabolism showed differences associated with increasing concentrations of the metalloid throughout the area, and it effectively exerts a significant pressure over these organisms. Thus, the significance of this research is that we describe highly specialized communities thriving in little-explored environments subjected to several pressures, considered analogous of early Earth and other planets, that have the potential for unraveling technologies to face the repercussions of climate change in many areas of interest.