A highly diverse, desert-like microbial biocenosis on solar panels in a Mediterranean city.

ABSTRACT: Microorganisms colonize a wide range of natural and artificial environments although there are hardly any data on the microbial ecology of one the most widespread man-made extreme structures: solar panels. Here we show that solar panels in a Mediterranean city (Valencia, Spain) harbor a highly diverse microbial community with more than 500 different species per panel, most of which belong to drought-, heat- and radiation-adapted bacterial genera, and sun-irradiation adapted epiphytic fungi. The taxonomic and functional profiles of this microbial community and the characterization of selected culturable bacteria reveal the existence of a diverse mesophilic microbial community on the panels' surface. This biocenosis proved to be more similar to the ones inhabiting deserts than to any human o

SUBMITTER: Dorado-Morales P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4932501 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature