Novel prokaryotic diversity in sediments of Tunisian multipond solar saltern.

The phylogenetic diversity of a sediment microbial community from two ponds having different salinities, 150-200 g/l (M2) and 250-300 g/l (TS38), of an Sfax (Tunisia) solar saltern, was investigated using 16S rRNA clone libraries. The 16S rRNA genes from 135 bacterial clones and 105 archaeal clones were sequenced and phylogenetically analyzed. 32 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were generated for Bacteria and 64 for Archaea. The bacterial community in M2 sediment was affiliated only with Bacteroidetes, while that in TS38 sediment was dominated by clones affiliated with Bacteroidetes, (gamma, alpha, delta) Proteobacteria and unclassified bacteria; these represented 56.52, 26.08, 4.34, 4.34 and 8.7% of the OTUs, respectively. In the M2 and TS38 sediments, 44.44 and 43.47% of the bacterial OTUs, respectively, were novel. All archaeal sequences fell into the Euryarchaeota phylum. In both sediments, 38.46 and 72.55% of the OTUs had less than 97% 16S rRNA sequence identity, representing novel OTUs. Two sequences, retrieved from TS38 sediment, were found to be affiliated with the candidate division MSBL-1 defining two OTUs. The sediment phylogenetic study revealed the presence of a highly diverse microbial population in highly salty media.