Fig. 10: Lateral distribution of prokaryote communities comprising 70% of total abundance in and around the main NEOM Brine Pool.
From: Discovery of the deep-sea NEOM Brine Pools in the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea
16S rRNA sequencing of the top 20 mm of the five cores reveal that the microbes inhabiting the background sediment (Core #1) and gray microbial beach zone (Core #2) are dominated by aerobic metabolic capabilities. Moving closer to the shoreline of the pool, this distribution between aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms is reversed in the orange microbial swash zone. For the samples obtained from within the brine pool (Cores #4 and #5), the sequenced microbes are dominated by a diverse suite of anaerobes with metabolisms spanning sulfate reduction, methanogenesis, reductive dechlorination, and fermentation.
