RESEARCH ARTICLE The lost world of Cuatro Cie´ negas Basin, a relictual bacterial niche in a desert oasis Valeria Souza1†*, Alejandra Moreno-Letelier2†, Michael Travisano3, Luis David Alcaraz4‡, Gabriela Olmedo5, Luis Enrique Eguiarte1* 1Departamento de Ecologı´a Evolutiva, Instituto de Ecologı´a, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Coyoaca´n, Mexico; 2Jardı´n Bota´nico, Instituto de Biologı´a Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Coyoaca´n, Mexico; 3Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, United States; 4Laboratorio Nacional de la Ciencias de la Sostenibilidad, Instituto de Ecologı´a, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico, Coyoaca´n, Mexico; 5Laboratorio de Biologı´a Molecular y Ecologı´a Microbiana, Departamento de Ingenierı´a Gene´tica, Unidad Irapuato Centro de Investigacio´n y Estudios Avanzados, Guanajuato, Mexico Abstract Barriers to microbial migrations can lead adaptive radiations and increased endemism. We propose that extreme unbalanced nutrient stoichiometry of essential nutrients can be a barrier to microbial immigration over geological timescales. At the oasis in the Cuatro Cie´negas Basin in *For correspondence: Mexico, nutrient stoichiometric proportions are skewed given the low phosphorus availability in the
[email protected] (VS); ecosystem. We show that this endangered oasis can be a model for a lost world. The ancient niche
[email protected] (LEE) of extreme unbalanced nutrient stoichiometry favoured survival of ancestral microorganisms. This † These authors contributed extreme nutrient imbalance persisted due to environmental stability and low extinction rates, equally to this work generating a diverse and unique bacterial community. Several endemic clades of Bacillus invaded Present address: the Cuatro Cienegas region in two geological times, the late Precambrian and the Jurassic.