Diversity of microbial mats in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, Botswana

The Makgadikgadi Salt Pans are the remnants of a mega paleo-lake system in the central Kalaha-ri, Botswana. Today, the Makgadikgadi Basin is an arid- to semi-arid area receiving water of meteoric origin during the short, wet season. Large microbial mats, which support primary pro-duction, are formed due to desiccation conditions during the dry season. This study aimed to characterise the microbial diversity of the microbial mats and associated sediment. The focus was the Ntwetwe Pan, located west of the Makgadikgadi Basin. Metagenomic analyses demon-strated that the mats were dominated by Cyanobacteriota (synonym Cyanobacteria) (20.50-41.47%) and Pseudomonodata (synonym Proteobacteria) (15.71 to 32.18%), which dif-fered from the underlying sediments that were dominated by Actinobacteriota (synonym Ac-tinobacteria) (26.76-39.15%). Localised fluctuations in water content and pH did not significant-ly affect the diversity of the sediments or the mats.