Southwest Spain's Río Tinto is a stressful acidic microbial habitat with a noticeably high concentration of toxic heavy metals. Nevertheless, it has an unexpected degree of eukaryotic diversity in its basin, with a high diversity of fungal saprotrophs. Although some studies on the eukaryotic diversity in Rio Tinto have been published, none of them used molecular methodologies to describe the fungal diversity and taxonomic affiliations that emerge along the river in different seasons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRío Tinto is an extreme environment located at the core of the Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB). It is an unusual ecosystem due to its size, constant acidic pH, high concentration of heavy metals and a high level of microbial diversity, mainly eukaryotic. Recently it was described the biomineralization of jarosite by Purpureocillium lilacinum, an acidic filamentous fungi isolated from the banks of the Tinto basin.
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