In order to understand the effect of human practices on microbial mats organisation, the study aimed to investigate the biodiversity within microbial mats from exploited and abandoned salterns. Despite several attempts, archaeal 16S rRNA gene fragment sequences were not obtained, indicating that microbial mats were probably dominated by Bacteria with very low abundance of Archaea (< 1%). Thus, the study compared the bacterial and meiofaunal diversity of microbial mats from abandoned and exploited salterns. The higher salinity (101 ± 3.7 psu vs. 51.1 ± 0.7 psu; Welch t-test p < 0.05) of the exploited site maintained lower bacterial diversity in comparison to the abandoned site where the salinity gradient was no longer maintained. However, the microbial mats exhibited similar bacterial class composition while the eukaryotic diversity was significantly higher in the exploited saltern. The abandoned saltern was dominated by sulfate-reducing bacteria and Nematoda, while the exploited saltern was characterized by the presence of halophilic bacteria belonging to Marinobacter, Salinivibrio and Rhodohalobacter genera, and the larger abundance of Hypotrichia (ciliates). Such bacterial and eukaryotic diversity difference might be explained by human actions for salt recovery in exploited salterns such as scraping the surface of microbial mat and increasing salinity renewing the microbial mat each year. Such action decreases the bacterial diversity changing the food web structure that favour the presence of a larger diversity of eukaryotic organisms. Our study provides new insights on microbial mat communities inhabiting salterns, especially the consequences of abandoning saltern exploitation.

为了了解人类实践对微生物垫组织的影响，该研究旨在调查来自开发和废弃盐场的微生物垫内的生物多样性。尽管进行了多次尝试，仍未获得古细菌 16S rRNA 基因片段序列，这表明微生物垫可能以细菌为主，古细菌丰度非常低（< 1%）。因此，该研究比较了废弃和利用盐场的微生物垫的细菌和小型动物多样性。更高的盐度（101 ± 3.7 psu vs. 51.1 ± 0.7 psu；Welch t -test p < 0.05) 与不再维持盐度梯度的废弃地点相比，已开发地点保持较低的细菌多样性。然而，微生物垫表现出相似的细菌类别组成，而在开发的盐场中真核生物多样性显着更高。废弃盐场以硫酸盐还原菌和线虫类为主，而开发盐场以存在海藻杆菌、盐弧菌和红盐菌属的嗜盐菌为特征。属，以及数量较多的 Hypotrichia（纤毛虫）。这种细菌和真核生物多样性的差异可能是由人类在已开发盐场中回收盐分的行为来解释的，例如刮擦微生物垫的表面和每年更新微生物垫的盐度增加。这种作用减少了细菌多样性，改变了食物网结构，有利于真核生物的更大多样性的存在。我们的研究为栖息在盐场的微生物垫群落提供了新的见解，尤其是放弃盐场开发的后果。