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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiological Chemistry and Geomicrobiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1391968
This article is part of the Research Topic Microbial-Driven Carbon Turnover from Dry-Wet Cycling Regions View all 6 articles

Carbonate precipitation and phosphate trapping by microbialite isolates from an alkaline insular lake (Bagno dell'Acqua, Pantelleria Island, Italy)

Provisionally accepted
Cristina Mazzoni Cristina Mazzoni 1,2*Agnese Piacentini Agnese Piacentini 1,2Letizia Di Bella Letizia Di Bella 3Luca Aldega Luca Aldega 3Cristina Perinelli Cristina Perinelli 3Aida M. Conte Aida M. Conte 4*Michela Ingrassia Michela Ingrassia 4Tania Ruspandini Tania Ruspandini 3*Andrea Bonfanti Andrea Bonfanti 1*Benedetta Caraba Benedetta Caraba 1*Francesco G. Falese Francesco G. Falese 4*Francesco L. Chiocci Francesco L. Chiocci 3*Stefano Fazi Stefano Fazi 1,2,5*
  • 1 Department of Biology and Biotechnology Charles Darwin, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Lazio, Italy
  • 2 Water Research Institute, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Lazio, Italy
  • 3 Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Lazio, Italy
  • 4 Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Roma, Lazio, Italy
  • 5 National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo, Sicily, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The Bagno dell'Acqua lake is characterized by frequent CO2 emissions, alkaline waters (pH=9) and Eh values which indicate strongly oxidizing conditions. A typical feature of the lake is the presence of actively growing microbialites rich in calcium carbonates and silica precipitates. Mineralogy, petrography and morphology analyses of the microbialites were coupled with the analysis of the microbial community, combining molecular and cultivation approaches. The DNA sequencing revealed distinct patterns of microbial diversity, showing pronounced differences between emerged and submerged microbialite, with the upper layer of emerged samples exhibiting the most distinctive composition, both in terms of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In particular, the most representative phyla in the microbial community were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteriota, and Bacteroidota, while Cyanobacteria were present only with an average of 5%, with the highest concentration in the submerged intermediate layer (12%). The role of microorganisms in carbonate mineral formation was clearly demonstrated as most of the isolates were able to precipitate calcium carbonate and five of them were characterized at molecular level. Interestingly, when microbial isolates were cultivated only in filtered water, the precipitation of hazenite was observed (up to 85%), opening new prospective in P (phosphate) recovery from P depleted environments.

    Keywords: Biomineralization, alkaline lake, Microbialites, Pantelleria, phosphate trapping, Hazenite

    Received: 26 Feb 2024; Accepted: 08 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mazzoni, Piacentini, Di Bella, Aldega, Perinelli, Conte, Ingrassia, Ruspandini, Bonfanti, Caraba, Falese, Chiocci and Fazi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Cristina Mazzoni, Department of Biology and Biotechnology Charles Darwin, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, 00185, Lazio, Italy
    Aida M. Conte, Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Roma, 00015, Lazio, Italy
    Tania Ruspandini, Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, 00185, Lazio, Italy
    Andrea Bonfanti, Department of Biology and Biotechnology Charles Darwin, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, 00185, Lazio, Italy
    Benedetta Caraba, Department of Biology and Biotechnology Charles Darwin, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, 00185, Lazio, Italy
    Francesco G. Falese, Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Roma, 00015, Lazio, Italy
    Francesco L. Chiocci, Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, 00185, Lazio, Italy
    Stefano Fazi, Water Research Institute, Department of Earth System Sciences and Technologies for the Environment, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, 70132, Lazio, Italy

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