Negev desert rocks - 16S rRNA
Rock art sites in the form of petroglyphs are found in the Negev Desert in southern Israel. These petroglyph sites include thousands of images depicting the life and culture of people in the region over the years. As they are part of the desert environment, these petroglyphs are exposed to natural and anthropogenic weathering processes. In natural rock sites, it is known that climatic conditions influence weathering and biofilm community development. Therefore, in order to develop tools for preservation and remediation, it is imperative to ascertain possible seasonal diversity of surface-inhabiting bacterial communities. To do so, we undertook to study and characterize the microbial communities inhabiting the rock sites during winter and summer. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies using 16S rRNA gene were implemented on rock-surface slab samples to identify the microbial communities.