Zajc Janja, Zalar Polona, Plemenitaš Ana, Gunde-Cimerman Nina
Biology Department, University of Ljubljana, Večna pot 111, Ljubljana, SI-1000, Slovenia.
Prog Mol Subcell Biol. 2012;53:133-58. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-23342-5_7.
Solar salterns are constructed as shallow multi-pond systems for the production of halite through evaporation of seawater. The main feature of salterns is the discontinuous salinity gradient that provides a range of well-defined habitats with increasing salinities, from moderate to hypersaline. These present one of the most extreme environments, because of the low levels of biologically available water and the toxic concentrations of ions. Up to the year 2000, hypersaline environments were considered to be populated almost exclusively by prokaryotic microorganisms till fungi were reported to be active inhabitants of solar salterns. Since then, numerous fungal species have been described in hypersaline waters around the world. The mycobiota of salterns is represented by different species of the genus Cladosporium and the related meristematic melanized black yeasts, of non-melanized yeasts, of the filamentous genera Penicillium and Aspergillus and their teleomorphic forms (Eurotium and Emericella), and of the basidiomycetous genus Wallemia. Among these, two species became new model organisms for studying the mechanisms of extreme salt tolerance: the extremely halotolerant ascomycetous black yeast Hortaea werneckii and the obligate halophilic basidiomycete Wallemia ichthyophaga.
太阳能盐场被构建为浅的多池塘系统，用于通过海水蒸发生产石盐。盐场的主要特征是不连续的盐度梯度，它提供了一系列明确界定的栖息地，盐度从中等逐渐增加到超盐度。由于生物可利用水含量低和离子浓度有毒，这些环境呈现出最极端的环境之一。直到2000年，超盐环境几乎被认为完全由原核微生物占据，直到有报道称真菌是太阳能盐场的活跃居民。从那时起，世界各地的超盐水中已经描述了许多真菌物种。盐场的真菌群落由枝孢属的不同物种以及相关的分生组织黑化黑酵母、非黑化酵母、丝状青霉属和曲霉属及其有性型（曲霉属和艾氏霉属）以及担子菌属的瓦勒霉属代表。其中，有两个物种成为研究极端耐盐机制的新模型生物：极端耐盐的子囊菌黑酵母沃氏霍塔酵母和专性嗜盐担子菌鱼孢瓦勒霉。
