Within the drainage basins perennial and ephemeral streams, soda swamps, and in this tectonically active region, warm soda seeps, hot springs and geysers represent separate habitats where gradients of pH, temperature, salinity and nutrients all interact to produce unique microbial populations. Lacustrine muds are black and anoxic, inferring the presence of separate anaerobic populations. Sampling of these biotopes so as to maximise the diversity for microbial screening requires great care and as recent results show the cultivated diversity may represent only the "tip of the soda crust".
1. Jones, B.E., Grant, W.D., Collins, N.C., and Mwatha, W.E. (1994) "Bacterial Identification and Systematics" (F.G. Priest et al., [Eds]), Plenum, New York, pp. 195-229.
2. Duckworth, A.W., Grant, W.D., Jones, B.E., and Van Steenbergen, R. (1996) FEMS Microbiol. Ecol. 19, 181-191.
