Hot waters of Dholera hotbed of microbes

Ahmedabad: Researchers have found microbes that cling to life and thrive in some of earth’s most inhospitable environments in Dholera’s hot water springs in Ahmedabad district. The samples from hot waters of Tuva-Timba during any season of the year — be it winter or summers — range between 60°C and 66°C respectively. But these springs are home to nearly 66 types of thermophilic bacteria.

These include methane-producing and sulphur utilizing thermophilic bacteria belonging to family of Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Methylobacterium and Desulfomicrobium in most of the samples taken by researcher’s department of life sciences, Gujarat University, Anand Agricultural University and Xavier Research Foundation, Loyola Centre for Research and Development.

“Firmicutes, a group of bacteria, was the most abundant for Tuva Timba water samples, while Proteobacteria was the most abundant for Dholera water and Tuva-Timba soil samples.

The third most abundant phylum was Actinobacteria, followed by Bacteroidetes and Deinacoccus–Thermus,” claims the research paper authored by Disha Patel, Jalpa Thakkar, Vincent Braganza and Hasmukh Modi. The paper adds that a similar finding was observed for Tulsi Shyam hot-water spring.

“Here too the most abundant group of bacteria were Firmicutes followed by Proteobacteria, similar to our findings at Dholera,” claims the research paper. Extremophiles include organisms that can survive near-boiling heat or near-freezing cold, high pressure or high salt, as well as environments steeped in acids, alkalis, metals or radioactivity. The researchers found the abundance of extremophile bacteria in all three Tuva-Timba water samples — nearly 76% to 81%. “Micrococcus, a type of bacteria was found in three Tuva-Timba water samples and it ranged with 8% to 9.5%, while Clostridium was higher in Tuva Timba soil monsoon samples and in all three Dholera water samples and ranged between 4% and 5%.” The paper also noted that the presence of thermophiles and sulphate-reducing bacteria reveals a strong correlation with temperature and sulphate content of the water samples.


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