ArticleMicrobial ecology2023
Environmental Drivers of the Moonmilk Microbiome Diversity in Some Temperate and Tropical Caves.
Article in Microbial ecology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cave microbial communities are structured by environmental matrix and depth and can be characterized with field-portable assays.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Habitat Specialization and Airborne Dispersal Shape the Microbiome of a Gypsum Karst Cave.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Exploring the Bacteriome Diversity and Use as a Proxy for Climate Change and Human Impacts on Groundwater in Temperate and Tropical Countries.Microbial ecology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Moonmilk is a cave deposit that was used for medical and cosmetic purposes and has lately raised interest for its antimicrobial potential. We studied five moonmilk samples from four caves with different microclimatic conditions, two temperate in north-western and northern Romania (Ferice, Fața Apei, and Izvorul Tăușoarelor caves) and one tropical in Minas Gerais, Brazil (Nestor Cave). The physicochemical and mineralogical analyses confirmed the presence of calcite and dolomite as the main phase in the moonmilk. A 16S rRNA gene-based metabarcoding approach showed the most abundant bacteria phyla Proteobacteria, GAL15, Actinobacteriota, and Acidobacteriota. The investigated caves differed in the dominant orders of bacteria, with the highest distance between the Romanian and Nestor Cave samples. Climate and, implicitly, the soil microbiome can be responsible for some differences we found between all the samples. However, other factors can be involved in shaping the moonmilk microbiome, as differences were found between samples in the same cave (Ferice). In our five moonmilk samples, 1 phylum, 70 orders (~ 36%), and 252 genera (~ 47%) were unclassified, which hints at the great potential of cave microorganisms for future uses.
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Registered trials
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