Biodiversity of wild Lactococcus lactis and their geo-spatial relationship with the environment

Abstract

Lactic acid bacteria are distributed in nature, isolating themselves from diverse ecosystems and presenting a wide metabolic biodiversity. In Corrientes (Argentina), artisanal cheeses and their specifi c environment are an important source of autochthonous lactic acid bacteria. The objective of this work was to establish associations between the phenotypic characteristics of strains of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis native from Corrientes with climatological data of the Province and the characteristics of the soil and the landscapes. Physiological and biochemical characterization data of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis isolated from the dairy environment and from different localities of Corrientes will be used. The strains were space-located through Google Earth, fl ood and drought events were evaluated using Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, and soil composition data (A and Bt horizons) in the study areas were obtained from the experimental station National Institute of Agricultural Technology - Corrientes. A statistical analysis was applied to these results (Infostat Software, Di Rienzo et al. 2008). The resulting consists in three conglomerates, differentiating strains from soils coming from “fl ooded landscapes” and those from “sandy hills landscape”. The analysis by main components highlighted the preference of strains from fl ooded landscapes by a saline-alkaline environment, affecting during periods of drought, and strains from sandy hills landscape by a low medium in salts and acid soil, directly during period of high humidity resulting from previous fl oods.