Ph.D. LIN Wei and his teacher PAN Yongxin analyze the magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) communities from different ecosystems across northern and southern China, including four freshwater lakes, two mangrove swamps, two estuaries and one intertidal zone, with a salinity gradient ranging from 0.18 to 28.6 parts per thousand (p.p.t.) and spanning latitudes of 191N–401N.

By a statistical comparison of these sequence data and publicly available MTB sequences, they infer for the first time that the composition of MTB communities represents a biogeographic distribution across globally heterogeneous environments, which is influenced by salinity.

Figure 1 Representative transmission electron micrographs of various MTB from nine locations across northern and southern China.

Lin et al. A biogeographic distribution of magnetotactic bacteria influenced by salinity. The ISME Journal. 2012, 6(2): 475-479（Download Here）