Table 4.

Overview of the most dominant (> 1% occurance) and possible indigenous microbial OTU’s detected in the original brines of the Asale karst hole and the Karum lake.

OTU #	Group description	Asale karst hole (9)	Karum lake (10)
17	Salinibacter	47%	26%
31	Deltaproteobacteria_unclassified	15%	17%
48	Bacteroidetes_unclassified	4%	13%
38	Bacteria_unclassified	14%	0%
91	Bacteria_unclassified	2%	10%
102	Saccharothrix	0%	4%
125	Methylobacterium	0%	2%
126	Bacteria_unclassified	0%	2%
143	Salinibacter	0%	2%
69	Candidatus_Nanosalina_unclassified	2%	9%
61	Candidatus_Nanosalina_unclassified	5%	0%
89	Candidatus_Nanosalina_unclassified	5%	0%
127	Candidatus_Nanosalina_unclassified	0%	2%
191	Candidatus_Nanosalina_unclassified	0%	1%
Others		5%	13%

Five OTU’s occurred in both waterbodies.