Table Of ContentMaría Eugenia Farías Editor
Microbial
Ecosystems
in Central
Andes Extreme
Environments
Biofilms, Microbial Mats, Microbialites
and Endoevaporites
Microbial Ecosystems in Central Andes Extreme
Environments
María Eugenia Farías
Editor
Microbial Ecosystems
in Central Andes Extreme
Environments
Biofilms, Microbial Mats, Microbialites
and Endoevaporites
Editor
María Eugenia Farías
LIMLA-PROIMI-CONICET
Tucuman, Argentina
ISBN 978-3-030-36191-4 ISBN 978-3-030-36192-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36192-1
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Preface
The Central Andean Altiplane, named Altiplane, (Bolivia and Peru), Atacama
(Chile) or Puna (Argentine), represents a unique extreme environment since its
locations are in high-altitude, closed basins that modulate salars and saline wetlands
surrounded by deserts, largely influenced by volcanic activity. UV radiation, arsenic
content, high salinity, alkalinity, and low dissolved oxygen content, together with
extreme daily temperature fluctuations and oligotrophic conditions, shape an envi-
ronment that recreates the early Earth and, even more, extraterrestrial conditions.
The discovery of living microbialites and microbial mats in 2009 has increased the
interest in this area as an early Earth counterpart.
Extreme microbial ecosystems thrive in different central Andean environments,
such as salars, wetlands, lakes, volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, geysers, and desert
soils. In this book we present the state of knowledge of these amazing ecosystems
as a basis of their integral protection.
The book is divided into chapters grouped into parts per environments and their
main microbial ecosystems.
The first part (Part I) includes a geographic and geological description of the area
and the general considerations of microbial systems in Andean lakes. From there,
the book is divided into environments and the most relevant microbiological ecosys-
tems studied in each one. Part II starts with the lithobiontic microbial colonization
found in the Atacama Desert, and its microbiology, biosignatures, and Vegas associ-
ated microbiology. Part III discusses the microbial life found at the highest Andean
active volcanoes Socompa and Lluillaillaco (above 6000 m a.s.l.) and the
Metagenomics approaches performed in Gaylussyte attached biofilms at Diamante,
an extreme alkaline arsenic content lake placed in the Caldera of the Galán
Supervolcano (4650 m a.s.l.). Part IV involves microbial ecosystems found in Salar
and Salars wetlands. It includes studies of the rare biosphere at Salar de Huasco
(3800 m a.s.l.), followed by Salar de Atacama where endoevaporite and microbial
mat systems formed mainly of Archaea at Laguna Tebenquiche (2000 m a.s.l.).
Updated knowledge of the endoevaporitic and mat systems and the metagenome
analyses of Llamara (800 m a.s.l.) at Salar de Puquios is also included. The part will
v
vi Preface
finish with a general overview of the halophile diversity of the main Argentinean
and Chilean Andean Salars.
Part V contains updated knowledge of the amazing modern microbialites at
Altiplano lakes, including new findings about Laguna Negra’s Oncolites
(4500 m a.s.l.) and Socompa and La Brava’s microbialites.
Part VI includes an integral prospection of the Andean microbial ecosystem
project implemented during the past 10 years in Argentine, Chile, and Bolivia. In
addition, strategies that these microbial ecosystems developed to cope with
extreme conditions, such as arsenic resistance and resistant genes dispersion by
mobile elements, are discussed.
Tucumán, Argentina María Eugenia Farías
Contents
Part I G eneral Considerations
1 Origin and Evolution of the Central Andes: Deserts, Salars,
Lakes, and Volcanoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Ricardo N. Alonso and Walter Rojas
2 Modern Microbial Mats and Endoevaporite Systems
in Andean Lakes: A General Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
María Eugenia Farías and Luis Alberto Saona Acuña
Part II P reandean and Andean Atacama Desert: Life at Limits
3 The Desert Polyextreme Environment and Endolithic Habitats . . . . 37
Jacek Wierzchos, Carmen Ascaso, Octavio Artieda,
and María Cristina Casero
4 Preandean Atacama Desert Endolithic Microbiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
María Cristina Casero, Victoria Meslier, Jacek Wierzchos,
and Jocelyne DiRuggiero
5 Desert Biosignatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Petr Vítek and Jacek Wierzchos
6 Microbial Characterization of Andean Peatland’s Soil . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Carolina Belfiore, Ana Paula Santos, Alejandra Leonor Valdez,
Manuel Contreras Leiva, and María Eugenia Farías
Part III Life in Andean Volcanoes and Fumaroles
7 Of Microbes and Mummies: Tales of Microbial Activity
and Inactivity at 6000 m a.s.l. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Steven K. Schmidt, Preston Sowell, Zachary R. Schubert,
Lara Vimercati, Adam J. Solon, Dorota L. Porazinska,
Pacifica Sommers, John L. Darcy, and Eli M. S. Gendron
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viii Contents
8 A Unique Natural Laboratory to Study Polyextremophile
Microorganisms: Diamante Lake as a Window
to the Origin of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Tatiana Stepanenko, Mariana N. Soria, Luis Alberto Saona Acuña,
Agustina I. Lencina, and María Eugenia Farías
Part IV E vaporitic Microbial Ecosystems at Salars: Living in the Salt
9 Microbial Communities Composition, Activity,
and Dynamics at Salar de Huasco: A Polyextreme
Environment in the Chilean Altiplano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Cristina Dorador, Verónica Molina, Martha Hengst, Yoanna Eissler,
Marcela Cornejo, Camila Fernández, and Vilma Pérez
10 Prokaryotic Diversity at the Hypersaline Laguna
Tebenquiche in the Salar de Atacama, Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Ana Beatriz Fernández, Pieter T. Visscher, María Cecilia Rasuk,
Manuel Contreras Leiva, and María Eugenia Farías
11 Complete Characterization of Stratified Ecosystems
of the Salar de Llamara (Atacama Desert) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
María Cecilia Rasuk, Manuel Contreras Leiva, Daniel Kurth,
and María Eugenia Farías
12 Microbial Diversity in Athalassohaline Argentinean Salterns . . . . . . 165
Merit del Rocío Mora-Ruiz and Carlos Díaz-Gil
Part V Carbonatic Microbialites at Central Andean Lakes
13 Characterization of Microbialites and Microbial Mats
of the Laguna Negra Hypersaline Lake
(Puna of Catamarca, Argentina) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Flavia Jaquelina Boidi, Estela Cecilia Mlewski,
Fernando Javier Gomez, and Emmanuelle Gérard
14 Extreme Microbiology at Laguna Socompa: A High-Altitude
Andean Lake (3570 m a.s.l.) in Salta, Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Virginia Helena Albarracín, Fátima Silvina Galván,
and María Eugenia Farías
15 Mats and Microbialites from Laguna La Brava . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
María Cecilia Rasuk, Pieter T. Visscher, Manuel Contreras Leiva,
and María Eugenia Farías
16 The Carbonate System in Hypersaline Lakes: The Case
of Laguna Negra (in the Puna Region of Catamarca, Argentina) . . . 231
Fernando Javier Gomez, Flavia Jaquelina Boidi,
Estela Cecilia Mlewski, and Emmanuelle Gérard
Contents ix
Part VI G eneralities and Particularities of Microbial Ecosystems
at the Central the Andes
17 Integral Prospection of Andean Microbial
Ecosystem Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
María Eugenia Farías, Patricio G. Villafañe, and Agustina I. Lencina
18 Linear Megaplasmids Spreading in the Andean Resistome . . . . . . . . 261
Martin Wagenknecht, María Florencia Pérez, and Julián Rafael Dib
19 Arsenic and Its Biological Role: From Early Earth
to Current Andean Microbial Ecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Luis Alberto Saona Acuña, Mariana N. Soria, Patricio G. Villafañe,
Tatiana Stepanenko, and María Eugenia Farías
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
About the Editor
María Eugenia Farías Ph.D. (Argentina), Biological Sciences (1992), Ph.D. in
Microbiology (1996), specialized in environmental microbiology. CONICET senior
researcher CCT-PROIMI (Pilot Plant for Microbiological Industrial Processes).
Head of the Laboratory of Microbiological Investigations of Lagunas Andinas
(LIMLA). Her research is based on the study of the microbial ecosystems of Andean
lagoons, prospecting studies, biodiversity, metagenomics as a basis for conservation
and biotechnological application of strategic national ecosystems. Currently, she is
doing a survey of the extremophile ecosystems associated with wetlands in Argentina,
Chile and Bolivia. She is author of >100 manuscripts, and her h-index is 21.
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