What this entity is
The canonical name is Mont Terri Opalinus borehole and rock-porewater sampling site. 1
Known aliases are Mont Terri Opalinus borehole and Mont Terri rock-porewater sampling site. 1
No stable external identifier was reported for this site in the source documents. 1,2
Key facts
The site contributed genomes to the deep-clay Bacillota_B anchor cohort, which compared subsurface lineages with soil-baseline Bacillota_B genomes. 1
That earlier anchor cohort comprised 10 genomes from Mont Terri Opalinus borehole and rock-porewater samples plus two Russian Beyelii Yar borehole genomes. 1
The source characterizes this anchor cohort as borehole- and porewater-dominated, reflecting cultivation bias toward porewater isolates. 1
The newer clay-confined analysis refines the sampling context: its deep cohort contained 8 Opalinus genomes from BRC-3 or BIC-A1 borehole isolation sources, alongside 1 bentonite-formation genome. 2
That analysis supports the porewater-dominated interpretation: 5/9 deep-cohort genomes carried dissimilatory sulfate-reduction markers, with 0.018 expected under the rock-attached null among 9 genomes and binomial p = 4.0×10⁻¹², whereas the iron-reduction comparison was not significant. 2
Because rock-attached Bacillota_B were not represented in the earlier comparison, it could not test whether rock-attached lineages differ in gene content from porewater-associated lineages. 1
The newer study further supports this cultivation-bias limitation: the cultured cohort applies to porewater-cultured deep-clay isolates, not the full Mont Terri community, and recommends MAG-augmented sampling to assess rock-attached lineages. 2
The site is therefore part of the sampling context for subsurface-bacillota-specialization, including enrichment of anaerobic-respiration, sporulation-revival, mineral-attachment, regulatory, and osmoadaptation functions in deep-clay Bacillota_B. 1
It is also relevant to cohort construction and lineage-comparison issues in pangenome-integration. 1
Source
- Subsurface Bacillota_B Specialization — What Distinguishes Deep-Clay Lineages from Soil Congeners? — comparison of deep-clay and soil-baseline Bacillota_B genomes. 1
- Self-Sufficiency, Anaerobic Toolkit, and Cultivation Bias in Clay-Confined Cultured Bacterial Genomes — analysis of cultured deep- and shallow-clay genomes, anaerobic metabolism, and cultivation bias. 2