Bacterial Diversity and Composition in Oylat Cave (Turkey) with Combined Sanger/Pyrosequencing Approach

Abstract

The microbiology of caves is an important topic for better understanding subsurface biosphere diversity. The diversity and taxonomic composition of bacterial communities associated with cave walls of the Oylat Cave was studied first time by molecular cloning based on Sanger/pyrosequencing approach. Results showed an average of 1,822 operational taxonomic units per sample. Clones analyzed from Oylat Cave were found to belong to 10 common phyla within the domain Bacteria. Proteobacteria dominated the phyla, followed by Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria and Nitrospirae. Shannon diversity index was between to 3.76 and 5.35. The robust analysis conducted for this study demonstrated high bacterial diversity on cave rock wall surfaces.