Preliminary Studies Commenced at Iğdır Tuzluca Salt Cave as Part of a Project Focusing on Halophilic Bacteria
Preliminary fieldwork has commenced for a project planned to be carried out at Iğdır University, which aims to identify halophilic bacteria in the Tuzluca Salt Cave using DNA metabarcoding methods. The project is one of the first scientific studies to examine microbial diversity at the molecular level in the Tuzluca Salt Cave.
Projenin yürütücülüğünü Fatoş Budak, akademik danışmanlığını ise Ziraat Fakültesi Tarımsal Biyoteknoloji Bölümü öğretim üyesi Doç. Dr. Kaan Hürkan üstlenmiştir. Ayrıca Zeynep Özmen projeye destek sağlamıştır. Her iki öğrenci de Bitki Koruma Bölümü 2. sınıf lisans öğrencisidir.The project was led by Fatoş Budak, with academic supervision provided by Associate Professor Kaan Hürkan from the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology at the Faculty of Agriculture. Zeynep Özmen also provided support for the project. Both students are second-year undergraduate students in the Department of Plant Protection.
In the preliminary studies conducted within this scope, samples representing the surface, cavity, stalactite and brine deposits were collected from the entrance, middle and deep segments of the Tuzluca Salt Cave. The samples obtained will be evaluated using DNA metabarcoding analyses in the subsequent stages of the project. This approach is noteworthy as one of the first DNA metabarcoding-based projects targeting salt caves in Turkey.
The images featured in the news article are from preliminary fieldwork conducted as part of the project, and the evaluation phase of the project application process is ongoing.
