Microbial life is present not only in our familiar world but also in extreme environments. Salt Lakes with near or at saturating salinity are extreme environments that common all over the world. The study in detail of such environments would permit to determine not only the microbial diversity but also the gene pools and potential use of this information for biotechnological applications. Urmia Salt Lake in the northwestern of Iran is the second Saltiest Lake in the world and resembles the Great Salt Lake in the western USA.Water, soil, sediment and Salt samples were taken from east and western sites in Urmia Salt Lake in July 2012. Direct plating, dilution plating and long incubation period were used to isolate organisms on MGM, MH, SWN medium. Isolates were taken from the samples by using the conventional culture-dependent methods. Of these, 36 isolates were selected for sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, based on their growth characteristics and colony morphology. Two hundred and twenty-eight of microorganisms were obtained from soil, Salt, water and sediment samples collected from the east and western of the Lake. Of these, 36 isolates were selected for sequencing and phylogenetic analysis.Results showed that 36 strains represented 8 species, belonging to 3 generaHalorubrum, Haloarcula, Haloterrigena. As total, bacterial isolates were belonged to Salicola, Pseudomonas. All strains showed 96.5 to 100 % similarity in 16S rDNA sequencing. Of these, 5 strains showed less than 98.7% sequence similarity to the closest known strains and were representatives as new taxa of Urmia Lake.The phylogenetic analysis of sequences of Urmia Lake indicated in overlaps with 16S rDNA sequences from other Lakes with similar habitats.

Background: The aim of this research was to evaluate halophilic bacterial diversity in Lake Razazeh as regards this is the first report on halophilic bacteria isolation in Iraq.Methods: Samples of saline soils, mud and water were collected from 15 locations of Lake Razazeh with distance of 4 km from each other. Halophiles were isolated by saline nutrient broth enrichment. The growth was diluted 10 times and plated on complete medium agar with a Salt gradient of 2.5 percent. Cultures were incubated at pH 7-7.5 and 37oC during 7 days given that all medium were controlled every day. Gram staining was carried out as a routine initial procedure in the identification of unknown bacterial species.Results: Two hundred and eighteen isolates were selected from isolation plates, which were named K1-K218. There were 161 gram-positive rod and cocci and 57 gram-negative rods. More than fifty strains were isolated using the morphological differences based on visible examination of the growth characteristics, and were used for further analysis. Also, 15 protozoa, 3 algae, 5 fungi and yeast were observed in the culture medium. It was found that the bacteria diversity in different media varied considerably so that only one type of bacteria grow in the 3 medium which likely showed these three bacteria are antibiotic-containing. About two third of the isolates were halotolerant and only eighteen isolates grew at NaCl concentrations greater than 17.5%.Conclusion: The data presented here show that despite drought, dehydration, increased concentrations of Salts and contaminants, Lake Razazeh near Karbala represents an untapped source of halophilic bacteria biodiversity.

Mighan Lake with the surface area of 112 km 2 is located eight kilometers northeast of Arak city, the main phytoplankton population and food chain of which include Dunaliella salina (Dunal) Teodoresco. The salinity of the Lake ranges between 20-120 g/l depending on season and water input. The present study evaluated the effect of salinity and physicochemical factors on phytoplankton communities in the Lake. To this end, sampling was performed monthly during March to December 2019. In addition, species and phytoplankton density were determined through inverted microscopy. Based on the results, 12 algal species were identified, among which D. salina was 87. 3% of phytoplankton composition. Indeed, salinity, as a major limiting factor, reduced phyto-plankton diversity in Mighan Lake.

Background and Objectives: Halophilic bacteria produce a variety of pigments, which function as immune modulators and have prophylactic action against cancers. In this study, colorful halophilic bacteria were isolated from solar Salt Lake and their pigments was extracted in optimal environmental conditions and compared with the pigments of Halorubrum sodomense ATCC 33755.Materials and Methods: Water samples from the solar Salt Lake in Imam Khomeini port in southwest of Iran were used as a source for isolation of pigment-producing bacteria. Halorubrum sodomense ATCC 33755 was used as control for pigment production. The conditions for optimum growth and pigment production were established for the isolated bacteria. Pigment were analyzed by spectrophotometer, TLC and NMR assay. The 16S rRNA genes were sequenced and results were used to differentiate haloarchaea from halophilic bacterial strains.Results: Among the isolated strains, YS and OS strains and Halorubrum sodomense were recognized as moderate and extremely halophile with maximum growth in the presence of 15% and 30% NaCl concentrations, respectively. Experiments conducted to find out the optimum conditions for growth and pigment production temperature at 25°C, pH = 7.2 and shaking conditions at 120 rpm for three strains. Without shaking, little growth with no pigment production was observed. Total pigment produced by red, yellow and orange strains was measured at 240, 880 and 560 mg per dry cell weight respectively. Amplification yielded bands of to isolated strains only observed with bacteria primers. This result suggesting the YS and OS strains were not haloarchaea.Conclusion: The isolated halophilic bacteria produced much higher amounts of pigments than Halorubrum sodomense. Photo intermediates including metarhodopsin II (lmeta = 380 nm) were determined as major pigment in Halorubrum sodomense.

IntroductionMonitoring of Salt Lake arid areas of sustainable development and environmental protection is an important parameter. Monitoring of this phenomenon, for extraction and thematic maps at different times is necessary. Remote Sensing is Powerful tool of the earth’s different ecosystems, such as Playa environments to produce valuable and useful data. Such major causes of male widespread applications of remote sensing data are simple, fast and useful and valuable research done by the data in a variety of indoor environments. Despite the still images using geomorphological phenomena in a variety of fields Such Playa Salt Lakes in arid and semiarid areas are very limited. Limitations on the use of satellite data to map the areas affected by the Salts depends on the spatial distribution of Salts on the surface, the changes in salinity, vegetation as a barrier and spectral mixing with other levels of the ground.

Production of ten hydrolytic enzymes was qualitatively studied on the haloarchaeal strains isolated from Aran-Bidgol hypersaline Lake in the central desert area of Iran. A total of 293 haloarchea strains were selected among 300 extremely halophilic isolated prokaryotes. Accordingly, 142, 141, 128, 64, 38, 16, 7, 3 and 1 archaeal isolates were able to produce DNase, amylase, lipase, inulinase, pullulanase, protease, cellulase, chitinase and xylanase, respectively. None was able to produce pectinase activity. Combined hydrolytic activity was also detected in many strains. A total of 0.3 % of the strains showed 6 hydrolytic activities, 0.3 % of the strains had 5 hydrolytic activities, 5.4 % of the strains presented 4 hydrolytic activities, 25 % of the strains presented 3 hydrolytic activities, 28 % of the strains presented 2 hydrolytic activities and 18 % of the strains presented 1 hydrolytic activity. According to their phenotypic characteristics and comparative partial 16 S rRNA sequence analysis, the halophilic strains were all identified as members of family Halobacteriaceae within 12 different taxa from the following genera: Halorubrum, Haloarcula, Natrinema, Halovivax and Natronomonas. Most enzymes production rate was observed in the genera Halorubrum, Haloarcula and Natrinema whereas; there was not any detectable amount of enzyme production in the genera Halovivax and Natronomonas. The most hydrolytic isolate with 6 combinatorial enzyme production belonged to the genus Natrinema. This investigation showed that the extreme halophilic archaea from Aran-Bidgol Lake are a potential source of hydrolytic enzyme under stress conditions and may have possess commercial value.

Urmia Lake is one of the largest saline Lakes in the world, which has greatly decreased in recent years. It has created many dangers and concerns especially concerning Salt dust in its arid areas. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate the relationship between vegetation and dust in the cities around Lake Urmia. For this purpose, first, using MODIS images and NDVI index, changes in the vegetation of the region in 2010 to 2020 were determined, and then, using the MERRA-2 database, the dust concentration was extracted for the mentioned years. The results showed that the mean NDVI in the study area follows a steady trend with a total mean of 0.2957 and sometimes increases or decreases due to the influence of external factors such as dust. Accordingly, the highest rate (0.3495) of the average NDVI is related to 2018 and the lowest rate (0.2579) is related to 2013. Furthermore, to investigate the relationship between vegetation and dust, two methods of linear and logarithmic regression were used. Based on linear regression (0.7703) and logarithmic (0.7153), the findings showed that the highest determination coefficient between the two indicators was in May.