Abstract
Assessing microbial communities in extreme environments allows the search for novel extremophilic microorganisms that can be of use in the development or improvement of biotechnological processes. Most microbial communities developed in such harsh environments have different heavy metal resistance strategies of importance in some technological applications as biomining but also in the bioremediation of metal-polluted environments. In this chapter we describe the microbial diversity of an acidic, volcanic geothermal environment in Northern Patagonia of Argentina: the Copahue geothermal system, containing different geothermal manifestations with temperatures up to 90 °C and pH values from 2 to 7 under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, provoking an enormous biodiversity. In addition, we report some heavy metal applications of those communities, focusing mainly in the bioprecipitation of heavy metals using sulfate-reducing microorganisms.
Keywords
- Microbial Community
- Total Chromium
- Acidithiobacillus Ferrooxidans
- Scenedesmus Obliquus
- Acidithiobacillus Thiooxidans
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge support from ANPCyT (PICT 2012 0623 and PICT 2013 0630).
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Segretin, A.B. et al. (2016). Assessment of Microbial Patagonian Communities for Using in Heavy Metal Bioremediation. In: Olivera, N., Libkind, D., Donati, E. (eds) Biology and Biotechnology of Patagonian Microorganisms. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42801-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42801-7_5
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