The effect of altitude on the bacterial diversity and abundance of the soil samples of Kazem Khan Mountain of saline Lake Urmia

Considering the critical conditions of Lake Urmia, identifying bacteria with the ability to live in extreme environments is valuable in terms of microbial applications and tolerance of the existing biological conditions, and it helps us to better understand the surrounding environment. In this study, the most abundant microbial branch in the soil samples obtained from three different heights of 10, 150 and 250 meters of Qale Kazem Khan Mountain, which is located on the shore of a very salty lake in Urmia, has been investigated.

The soil samples were collected to identify and classify Proteobacteria    subgroups using 16S rRNA sequencing using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) as well as FLASH genetic software and UCHIME algorithm to identify the obtained sequences.

Altitude change affects the abundance of Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria. The abundance percentage of Alphaproteobacteria has a direct relationship with altitude, while the abundance percentage of Betaproteobacteria increased with the decrease in altitude.

in the overview the percentage of Proteobacteria abundance the samples has an inverse relationship with the increase in height, whereas in the separate examination of the microbial groups, a significant relationship between the increase and decrease in abundance and the height of sampling is observed. Also, two unknown and unclassified genera in the  Deltaproteobacteria order were also identified which a very high frequency percentage (18-27%) among the data had related to the three samples.