science

Salinibacter ruber

Salinibacter ruber is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Salinibacter ruber rather than just read about it. In short: Salinibacter ruber is an extremely halophilic red bacterium, first found in Spain in 2002. Taxonomy Salinibacter ruber is most closely related to the genus Rhodothermus which is a thermophilic, slightly halophilic bacterium.

Key takeaways

Salinibacter ruber belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Salinibacter ruber to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Salinibacter ruber from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Salinibacter ruber is an extremely halophilic red bacterium, first found in Spain in 2002.

Taxonomy Salinibacter ruber is most closely related to the genus Rhodothermus which is a thermophilic, slightly halophilic bacterium. Though genetically it is considered to be closest to the Rhodothermus genus, it is most comparable to the family Halobacteriaceae, because of similarity in protein structure. It is red-pigmented, motile, rod-shaped, and extremely halophilic. The type strain is strain M31T(= DSM 13855T = CECT 5946T).

Habitat Salinibacter ruber was found in saltern crystallizer ponds in Alicante and Mallorca, Spain in 2002 by Antón et al. This environment has very high salt concentrations, and Salinibacter ruber itself cannot grow at below 15% salt concentration, with an ideal concentration between 20 and 30% (i.e. 200-300 grams of salt per litre, the average concentration in the ocean being around 35 g/L). It has also been found in pink lakes in Australia. This bacterium is notable for its halophilic lifestyle, a trait exhibited primarily by members of Archaea. In general, bacteria do not play a large role in microbial communities of hypersaline brines at or approaching NaCl saturation. However, with the discovery of S. ruber, this belief was challenged. It was found that S. ruber made up from 5% to 25% of the total prokaryotic community of the Spanish saltern ponds.

Characteristics In a 2015 study conducted by researchers led by molecular biologist Ken McGrath at Lake Hillier, Western Australia, showed that, while the algae Dunaliella salina, formerly thought to create the color in this pink lake, was present in only tiny quantities (0.1% of DNA sampled), while S. ruber formed 20 to 33% of the DNA recovered from the lake. Salinibacter ruber produces a pigment called bacterioruberin, which helps it to trap and use light for energy in the photosynthesis process. While the pigments in algae are contained within the chloroplasts, bacterioruberin is spread across the whole cell of the bacterium. This makes it more likely that the colour of the lake is that of S. ruber.

Footnotes

References

Further reading Mongodin, E. F. (2005). "The genome of Salinibacter ruber: Convergence and gene exchange among hyperhalophilic bacteria and archaea". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (50): 18147–18152. Bibcode:2005PNAS..10218147M. doi:10.1073/pnas.0509073102. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1312414. PMID 16330755. Brochier-Armanet, Celine; Antón, Josefa; Lucio, Marianna; Peña, Arantxa; Cifuentes, Ana; Brito-Echeverría, Jocelyn; Moritz, Franco; Tziotis, Dimitrios; López, Cristina; Urdiain, Mercedes; Schmitt-Kopplin, Philippe; Rosselló-Móra, Ramon (2013). "High Metabolomic Microdiversity within Co-Occurring Isolates of the Extremely Halophilic Bacterium Salinibacter ruber". PLOS ONE. 8 (5) e64701. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...864701A. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064701. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3669384. PMID 23741374. Oren, Aharon; Mana, Lili (2003). "Sugar metabolism in the extremely halophilic bacterium Salinibacter ruber". FEMS Microbiology Letters. 223 (1): 83–87. doi:10.1016/S0378-1097(03)00345-8. ISSN 0378-1097. PMID 12799004. Sher, Jonathan; Elevi, Rahel; Mana, Lily; Oren, Aharon (2004). "Glycerol metabolism in the extremely halophilic bacterium Salinibacter ruber". FEMS Microbiology Letters. 232 (2): 211–215. doi:10.1016/S0378-1097(04)00077-1. ISSN 0378-1097. PMID 15033241. Pašić, Lejla; Rodriguez-Mueller, Beltran; Martin-Cuadrado, Ana-Belen; Mira, Alex; Rohwer, Forest; Rodriguez-Valera, Francisco (2009). "Metagenomic islands of hyperhalophiles: the case of Salinibacter ruber". BMC Genomics. 10 (1): 570. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-570. ISSN 1471-2164. PMC 2800850. PMID 19951421.

External links "Salinibacter ruber". The Encyclopedia of Life. "Salinibacter ruber at Microbe Wiki". Type strain of Salinibacter ruber at BacDive – the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Salinibacter ruber

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Salinibacter ruber claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Salinibacter ruber before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Salinibacter ruber ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Salinibacter ruber

In research: Salinibacter ruber appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Salinibacter ruber in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Salinibacter ruber is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bacteria described in 2002, Gram-negative bacteria, Rhodothermota, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Salinibacter ruber outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Salinibacter ruber in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Salinibacter ruber means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Salinibacter ruber out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Salinibacter ruber in simple terms?

Salinibacter ruber is an extremely halophilic red bacterium, first found in Spain in 2002. Taxonomy Salinibacter ruber is most closely related to the genus Rhodothermus which is a thermophilic, slightly halophilic bacterium.

Why does Salinibacter ruber matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Salinibacter ruber?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Salinibacter ruber.