Vibrio communities along a salinity gradient within a marine saltern hypersaline environment (Saline di Tarquinia, Italy)

Abstract

Vibrio species are ubiquitous in a number of different aquatic environments and promptly adapting to environmental changes due to high genome plasticity. The presence of these bacteria in marine salterns, in relation to a salinity gradient has been not investigated yet. Moreover, it is not clear if these hypersaline environments could represent a reservoir for Vibrio spp. This work investigated, through a metagenetic approach, the distribution of Vibrio (over 2 years) in different ponds along the salinity gradient within the ‘Saline di Tarquinia’ salterns, considering also the adjacent coastal waters and an isolated brine storage basin (BSB). Vibrio occurrence was higher in the sea than in the ponds and BSB, where it usually represented a rare taxon (abundance <1%). In the sea, it showed abundances in-between 1%–2.6% in 8 months out of 24. Four OTUs were assigned to the Vibrio genus; except for one that was more abundant in BSB, the others were much higher in the sea. Redundancy analysis (RDA) suggested a different distribution of the OTUs in relation to water temperature and salinity. Vibrio was found, even with low abundances, at the highest salinities also, suggesting the salterns as a possible reservoir for the bacterium.