DRP002613
Analysis of Early Microbial Communities on Recent Volcanic Deposits of Mt. Merapi, Indonesia
Due to the 2010 Mt. Merapi eruption, the land around the mountain was covered by pyroclastic materials. For the environmental rehabilitation of the volcanic eruption-affected area, it is important to know the pioneer soil microbial communities. The aim of this study was to characterize the early microbial communities in the Mt. Merapi unvegetated volcanic deposits. This investigation was designed to compare the microbial communities of the volcanic deposits with those of forest soil near the mountain by using molecular genetic approaches targeting bacterial 16S rRNA genes. Two unvegetated sites (BR and BRU) were established together with a forest site (FR) as a reference. The diversity index were 3.11, 2.25, and 2.91 on sites BR, BRU, and FR, respectively, which indicated that the bacterial diversity was relatively higher in site BR than in the other sites. Results of the PCoA analysis showed that all bacterial communities of the volcanic deposit samples clustered away from those of forest soil samples. Microbial communities in recent volcanic deposits of Mt. Merapi were phylogenetically diverse inspite of very low-carbon conditions. Proteobacteria was the most abundant phylum in the bacterial community of volcanic deposits. Inspection underlying families revealed the predominance of the family Caulobacteraceae in Alphaproteobacteria, Oxalobacteraceae in Betaproteobacteria, and Xanthomonadaceae in Gammaproteobacteria in the volcanic deposit communities.