Prokaryotic Community Compositions of the Hypersaline Sediments of Tuz Lake Demonstrated by Cloning and High-Throughput Sequencing

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Abstract Tuz Lake is a shallow, perennial, inland hypersaline lake located at the center of the Turkey. Microbial populations developing in the sedimentary layers of the lake were investigated by using 16S rRNA gene-targeted Illumina MiSeq sequencing and cloning. A total of 11 samples were taken from three sampling points. Here we report the relative abundance of microbial taxa distributed across the sediment samples. Abundant, rare and region-specific prokaryotic taxa were also examined and compared. The majority of high-throughput sequences were associated with the classes Halobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Bipolaricaulia, Desulfovibrionia, candidate division MSBL-1, Bacteroidia, and Desulfobacteria. Gemmatimonadota_c, Rhodothermia, Alphaproteobacteria, Methanonatronarchaeia, Thermoplasmata, Halanaerobiia, Desulfobulbia, and Bacilli were other notable taxa with low abundance. A genus belonging to Bipolaricaulia was the most abundant taxon, accounting for 11.5% of all MiSeq reads. Reads affiliated with the genera Halomonas, Desulfovermiculus, MSBL-1_g1, and Halodesulfurarchaeum were also detected at high abundance. Bipolaricaulota, Bacteroidales, Desulfosalsimonas, Desulfobulbales, Gemmatimonadota, Lentisphaeria, Halobacteriales, MSBL-1, Thermoplasmata, and DHVEG-1 related phylotypes were also frequently represented in the clone libraries.