Salt lakes, climate change, and human impact: a microbiologist's perspective

Abstract

he world’s major salt lakes are rapidly drying out due to water diversion for irrigation, climatic changes and other causes. The accompanying increase in salinity and other changes in the physico-chemical properties have a profound impact on the microbial communities which are the basis of the food web. This paper gives an overview of the changes in the microbial communities and their activities that have occurred in the past decades in Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea, Lake Urmia and the Aral Sea. In-depth knowledge of the microbial populations and the biogeochemical processes they perform is essential for the proper understanding of current functioning of salt lake ecosystems and for the prediction of the consequences of future changes in these unique environments.

Keywords

• salt lakes
• Great Salt Lake
• Dead Sea
• Lake Urmia
• Aral Sea