Toward a Comprehensive Understanding of Environmental Perturbations in Microbial Mats from the Cuatro Cienegas Basin by Network Inference

Abstract

The Cuatro Cienegas Basin (CCB) encompasses hundreds of aquatic systems that harbor diverse microbialites with different community structure composition and with the highest level of endemism in North America. Thus, CCB represents a desert oasis of high biodiversity. Despite the great importance of this unique site, increasing demand on water for agricultural development (forage and feed livestock) was first manifested with extraction of groundwater in 2011, starting the drying process of aquifers and desertification of the Churince Lagoon. As consequence, water levels have been drastically fluctuating, affecting all ecosystem functions. This chapter reviews a recent network-based approach used to understand how the anthropogenic disturbances affect one of the most resistant microbial communities since the Archean, microbial mats.