Taxonomic assignment of the most abundant bacterial OTUs (at 97% cut-off) from the microbial mats at the end of the experiment using the Ribosomal Database Project tool for classification.

<p>OTU designations are followed (in parenthesis) by the number of sequences represented by that OTU in each environment. These designations are presented in the following order: Pools, Control, UVmin, UVplus, 40C, and Fluct. The S_ab score represents the percentage of shared 7-mers between two sequences, which does not require alignment in the calculation. Abbreviations: M is the mesocosm experiment; Y is Yellowstone (USA). <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0119741#pone.0119741.s006" target="_blank">S1 Table</a> provides the list of all OTUs.</p><p>Taxonomic assignment of the most abundant bacterial OTUs (at 97% cut-off) from the microbial mats at the end of the experiment using the Ribosomal Database Project tool for classification.</p

Relative abundance of bacterial taxonomic groups from the clone libraries data of the microbial mats in the treatments and the pools at the end of the experiment.

<p>The number of clones obtained from each environment is indicated below in its respective bar. The photo above each bar represents the “microbial mat catchers” in each environment.</p

Heatmap showing the abundance of the 39 bacterial orders in the pools and treatments at the end of the experiment based on the 16S rRNA gene libraries.

<p>The Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrix and Ward’s hierarchical clustering algorithm were applied in this analysis. Higher abundance is indicated by increased blue color intensity. The value shown in the color key scale represents the number of sequences detected for each environment. Rows indicate bacterial orders and columns indicate the different environments.</p

Box-and-whisker plots comparing the phylogenetic mean pairwise distance (MPD) and the mean nearest taxon distance (MNTD) values for the bacterial OTUs between pools and treatments.

<p>Asterisks indicate communities that are significantly structured at p< 0.05 level.</p

Mesocosm experiment with “synthetic” microbial mats from CCB.

<p>A: Poza Azul; B: “microbial mat catchers” (trays with frosted glass slides) in the natural pools; C: mesocosm experiment.</p

Alpha diversity indices of the 16S rRNA gene sequences (OTUs at 97% cut-off) for each treatment and the natural pools.

<p>Confidence interval of each index in brackets; Sobs is the observed richness.</p><p>Alpha diversity indices of the 16S rRNA gene sequences (OTUs at 97% cut-off) for each treatment and the natural pools.</p

Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination plot of Bray–Curtis community dissimilarities based on OTUs from the 16S rRNA gene sequences at the end of the experiment (2D stress value = 0.19).

<p>Color symbols represent the mesocosms from each treatment and pools, while grey crosses represent OTUs.</p

N:P ratio of residual dissolved nutrients in the water column on days 21 and 42.

<p>Each bar represents average of 5 measurements ± 1 standard deviation. Different letters indicate significant differences between treatments for a given date while ‘*’ represents a significant change from day 21.</p

Elemental stoichiometry of seston on days 21 and 42 in the mesocosms.

<p>Each value represents the average and one standard deviation in parentheses. Different bolded letters indicate significant different between the treatments within the same day.</p><p>* denotes significant change from day 21.</p><p>Elemental stoichiometry of seston on days 21 and 42 in the mesocosms.</p

Mutation frequencies.

<p>Mutation frequencies for each of the 30 positions in 8 genes of 5 strains are shown. The isolates with the greatest number of mutations were B₂ and B_10, which presented the most diversified genotype, and the genes with the greatest number of mutations were <i>adk</i>, <i>icd</i> and <i>recA</i>.</p