Bacterial communities on lava deposits of different ages from Krafla, Iceland.

One of the major questions in geomicrobiology is the role of microbes in soil genesis and ecosystem development. It was already shown that bacteria are the primary colonizers on newly formed volcanic substrates such as lava and that subsequent microbe-mineral interactions contributed to formation of an early ecosystem in these environments. The role of certain bacteria in transforming this extreme environment (exposure to desiccation, temperature fluctuations, limited nutrient availability) is not well characterized and poorly understood. Therefore, this study was aimed at (1) determining the bacterial communities present on lava deposits of different ages and (2) to look at the relationship between the bacterial community characteristics, mineralogy and weathering of the lava basalt.