RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A highly diverse, desert-like microbial biocenosis on solar panels in a Mediterranean city JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 029660 DO 10.1101/029660 A1 Pedro Dorado-Morales A1 Cristina Vilanova A1 Juli Peretó A1 Franscisco M. Codoñer A1 Daniel Ramón A1 Manuel Porcar YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/22/029660.abstract AB Microorganisms colonize a wide range of natural and artificial environments although there are hardly any data on the microbial ecology of one the most widespread man-made extreme structures: solar panels. Here we show that solar panels in a Mediterranean city (Valencia, Spain) harbor a highly diverse microbial community with more than 500 different species per panel, most of which belong to drought-, heat- and radiation-adapted bacterial genera, and sun-irradiation adapted epiphytic fungi. The taxonomic and functional profiles of this microbial community and the characterization of selected culturable bacteria reveal the existence of a diverse mesophilic microbial community on the panels surface. This biocenosis proved to be more similar to the ones inhabiting deserts than to any human or urban microbial ecosystem. This unique microbial community shows different day/night proteomic profiles; it is dominated by reddish pigment- and sphingolipid-producers, and is adapted to withstand circadian cycles of high temperatures, desiccation and solar radiation.