At Shores of a Vanishing Sea: Microbial Communities of Aral and Southern Aral Sea Region

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Abstract

Since the early 60s of the 20th century, as a result of agricultural development in the irrigated areas of Uzbekistan, the area of the Aral Sea has decreased by 90%, while the water salinity has increased from 1% to 20%. The aim of our work was to investigate the diversity of microbial communities of water and sediments of the Western Aral Sea, as well as of the adjacent soils and reservoirs using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes variable V4 region. It was found that the Aral Sea water with a salinity of 22% was dominated by uncultured Archaea of the family Haloferacaceae (22‒43%), as well as by bacteria of the genera Spiribacter and Psychroflexus. In the Aral Sea sediments the share of archaea was much lower (2‒17%), and among them the uncultured Woesearchaeales predominated. Among bacteria, dominating in Aral sediments, there were sulfate reducers of the phylum ‘Desulfobacterota’, as well as representatives of the genera Fusibacter, Halanaerobium, Guyparkeria, Marinobacter, Idiomarina and Thiomicrospira. In soil samples of the former Aral Sea bed with salinity of 8.2%, a variety of archaea of the phylum Halobacterota were present, as well as uncultured bacteria of the family Nitrosococcaceae. However, in the rhizosphere of Ewresmann’s teresken plant (Kraschennininikovia ewresmanniana) growing there, archaea accounted for only 4% and mainly represented the family Nitrososphearaceae. 33% of all prokaryotes in the rhizosphere microbiome were the uncultured representatives of the phylum Actinomycetota. The microbial community of the teresken rhizosphere turned out to be similar to the microbial communities of the soil of the Ustyurt plateau, located in 3 km from the Aral Sea shore. The fresh water flowing along the former Aral Sea bed from an artificially drilled well also causes significant changes in the microbial communities: cyanobacterial mats and associated organotrophic bacteria develop along the stream bed with the increasing salinity (0.5‒2%). Finally, the greatest diversity of prokaryotes was found in the microbial community of Sudochie Lake sediment with salinity of 1%, which is probably a modern analogue of the Aral Sea microbiome before its shallowing.

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About the authors

N. A. Chernyh

Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, FRC Fundamentals of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

A. Yu. Merkel

Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, FRC Fundamentals of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

K. V. Kondrasheva

Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Uzbekistan, Tashkent

Zh. E. Alimov

International Agricultural University

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Uzbekistan, Tashkent

A. A. Klyukina

Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, FRC Fundamentals of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

E. A. Bonch-Osmolovskaya

Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, FRC Fundamentals of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences; Lomonosov Moscow State University

Author for correspondence.
Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Russian Federation, Moscow; Moscow

A. I. Slobodkin

Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, FRC Fundamentals of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

K. D. Davranov

Institute of Microbiology, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan

Email: chernyh3@yandex.com
Uzbekistan, Tashkent

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Supplementary files

Supplementary Files
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2. Fig. 1. Map of the Aral Sea and sampling locations

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3. Fig. 2. Relative representation (%) of prokaryotic phyla in the samples studied. Only phyla with relative representation >1% are shown

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4. Fig. 3. Heat map showing the number of representatives of some genera, which constitute more than 5% of the whole community (blue color). Brown color shows the same representatives in the number of less than 5%

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5. Fig. 4. Shannon diversity index (Y axis). The lowest diversity of ASV phylotypes was observed in samples AW2, WW3, AW1, AD4 and WW2. The highest diversity of ASV phylotypes was found in samples from the rhizosphere (RS), from the Ustyurt Plateau and from Lake Sudochie (SD)

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6. Fig. 5. Richness of ASV phylotypes. Y-axis is the number of ASV phylotypes. The smallest number of phylotypes is represented in samples AW2, AW1 and WW3. The largest number of phylotypes is represented in sample SD (Lake Sudochie)

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7. Fig. S1. Histogram showing phylogenetic composition (family or genus level) based on the results of 16S rRNA gene profiling of microbial communities of water, bottom sediments and soil of the Western Aral Sea, as well as bottom sediments of Lake Sudochie

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8. Fig. S2. Histogram showing phylogenetic composition (genus level) based on the results of 16S rRNA gene profiling of microbial communities taken on the shore of the Western Aral Sea, consisting of wet sand and from the rhizosphere of the teresken - Krascheninnikovia ewersmanniana (RS and AS)

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9. Fig. S3. Histogram showing phylogenetic composition (genus level) based on 16S rRNA gene profiling results of microbial communities confined to the soils of the Ustyurt Plateau (US3, US1 and US2)

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10. Fig. S4. Histogram showing phylogenetic composition (genus level) based on 16S rRNA gene profiling results of microbial communities confined to freshwater wells (WW1-WW3, WM, WD1-WD2)

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11. Photo 1. View of the Western Aral from the Ustyurt Plateau

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