Laboratory grown subaerial biofilms on granite: application to the study of bioreceptivity

Abstract

Simulated environmental colonisation of granite was induced under laboratory conditions in order to develop an experimental protocol for studying bioreceptivity. The experimental set-up proved suitable for producing subaerial biofilms by inoculating granite blocks with planktonic multi-species phototrophic cultures derived from natural biofilms. The ability of four different cultures to form biofilms was monitored over a three-month growth period via colour measurements, quantification of photosynthetic pigments and EPS, and CLSM observations. One of the cultures under study, which comprised several taxa including Bryophyta, Charophyta, Chlorophyta and Cyanobacteria, was particularly suitable as an inoculum, mainly because of its microbial richness, its rapid adaptability to the substratum and its high colonisation capacity. The use of this culture as an inoculum in the proposed experimental set-up to produce subaerial biofilms under laboratory conditions will contribute to standardising the protocols involved, thus enabling more objective assessment of the bioreceptivity of granite in further experiments.

Keywords:

• Bioreceptivity
• granite
• multi-species phototrophic culture
• subaerial biofilm

Funding

The first author was financially supported by ‘Programa de axudas predoutorais financiadas polos grupos de investigación da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela no marco do Estatuto do Persoal de Investigación en Formación’ [PhD grant 2011/AX461].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.