Factors associated with the diversification of the microbial communities within different natural and artificial saline environments

To investigate whether there is a core microbial community of natural and industrial saline environments and to evaluate the effects of salinity on microbial communities, two natural samples and four artificial samples taken from different locations in China were analyzed by constructing 16S rRNA gene cloning libraries. The results showed that natural samples have a significantly higher halotolerant and halophilic bacterial diversity compared to artificial samples. In total, 9 phyla were detected among the samples, but only Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria were commonly shared. The canonical correspondence analysis demonstrated that the community variance correlated strongly with Cl^-, DOC, conductivity, and pH. Moreover, the Q-PCR results revealed that salinity influenced the microbial community structure and progressively decreased the populations of bacteria, archaea, fungi and yeast. Variation partitioning analysis illustrated that DOC/Cl^- had the greatest contribution to bacterial population variation, revealing a core control factor used for functional resilience in saline wastewater treatment applications.