Identification of some Cyanobacterial Isolates of Khabr National Park of ‎Kerman using Classic and Molecular Methods ‎

Abstract

Introduction: Khabr national park is one of the invaluable natural sources in our country and its microbial variety has not been investigated. Cyanobacteria are of those organisms that are present in all terrestrial and water ecosystems and some minerals are limiting factors in their growth. The goal of this study is to investigate the present cyanobacteria in the soils of the grazed and non-grazed plots in two cold and hot steppes of Khabr Park in the autumn season by means of classic and molecular methods. Materials and Methods: 32 different regions of Khabr Park were sampled in autumn and were cultured in BG11 medium. Isolation of cyanobacteria was conducted by various sub-cultures. Then the pure colonies were morphologically studied by valid taxonomic keys. Molecular identification of mentioned isolates was performed by amplification and sequencing of 16srRNA gene. The features of mentioned soils were analyzed physically and chemically. Results: The results showed that for the soil texture of sandy loam, the average electrical conductivity was 99.12 µSiemens/cm and the average acidity of soil was 8.29. The isolates of Cyanobacteria belonged to Chroococcidiopsis, Leptolyngbya, Synechococcus, Nodularia. The results of DNA sequencing were compared to NCBI and its results were subjected to BLAST alignment. Discussion and conclusion: The present work revealed that the variety and the number of the Cyanobacteria in this desert area are dependent on different parameters such as weather, humidity, source of nutrients, the amount of light absorbed by the surface and the temperature. The results of molecular identification validated the results of morphological tests.

Keywords

• Khabr National Park
• Cyanobacteria
• 16srRNA gene‎