Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Impact Of Host Rock Geochemistry On Bacterial Community Structure In Oligotrophic Cave Environments, Hazel Barton, Nicholas Taylor, Michael Kreate, Austin Springer, Stuart Oehrle, Janet Bertog

Hazel Barton

Despite extremely starved conditions, caves contain surprisingly diverse microbial communities. Our research is geared toward understanding what ecosystems drivers are responsible for this high diversity. To asses the effect of rock fabric and mineralogy, we carried out a comparative geomicrobiology study within Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico, USA. Samples were collected from two different geologic locations within the cave: WF1 in the Massive Member of the Capitan Formation and sF88 in the calcareous siltstones of the Yates Formation. We examined the organic content at each location using liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy and analyzed microbial community structure using molecular phylogenetic analyses. In …