ABSTRACT: Prokaryotic communities and physico-chemical characteristics of 30 brine samples from the thalassohaline Tuz Lake (Salt Lake), Deep Zone, Kayacik, Kaldirim, and Yavsan salterns (Turkey) were analyzed using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and standard methods, respectively. Archaea (98.41% of reads) was found to dominate in these habitats in contrast to the domain Bacteria (1.38% of reads). Representatives of the phylum Euryarchaeota were detected as the most predominant, while 59.48% and 1.32% of reads, respectively, were assigned to 18 archaeal genera, 19 bacterial genera, 10 archaeal genera, and one bacterial genus that were determined to be present, with more than 1% sequences in the samples. They were the archaeal genera Haloquadratum, Haloarcula, Halorhabdus, Natronomonas, Halosimplex, Halomicrobium, Halorubrum, Halonotius, Halolamina, Halobacterium, and Salinibacter within the domain Bacteria. The genera Haloquadratum and Halorhabdus were found in all sampling sites. While Haloquadratum, Haloarcula, and Halorhabdus were the most abundant genera, two uncultured Tuz Lake Halobacteria (TLHs) 1 and 2 were detected in high abundance, and an additional uncultured haloarchaeal TLH-3 was found as a minor abundant uncultured taxon. Their future isolation in pure culture would permit us to expand our knowledge on hypersaline thalassohaline habitats, as well as their ecological role and biomedical and biotechnological potential applications.
