Abstract
Research on the microbial communities that colonize stone monuments may provide a new understanding of stone biodeterioration and microbe-induced carbonate precipitation. This work investigated the seasonal variation of microbial communities in 2016 and 2017, as well as its effects on stone monuments. We determined the bacterial and fungal compositions of 12 samples from four well-separated geographic locations by using 16S rRNA and internal transcribed spacer gene amplicon sequencing. Cyanobacteria and Ascomycota were the predominant bacterial and fungal phyla, respectively, and differences in species abundance among our 12 samples and 2 years showed no consistent temporal or spatial trends. Alpha diversity, estimated by Shannon and Simpson indices, revealed that an increase or decrease in bacterial diversity corresponded to a decrease or increase in the fungal community from 2016 to 2017. Large-scale association analysis identified potential bacteria and fungi correlated with stone deterioration. Functional prediction revealed specific pathways and microbiota associated with stone deterioration. Moreover, a culture-dependent technique was used to identify microbial isolates involved in biodeterioration and carbonatogenesis; 64% of 85 bacterial isolates caused precipitation of carbonates in biomineralization assays. Imaging techniques including scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and fluorescence imaging identified CaCO(3) crystals as calcite and vaterite. Although CaCO(3) precipitation induced by bacteria often has esthetically deleterious impacts on stone monuments, this process may potentially serve as a novel, environmentally friendly bacterial self-inoculation approach to the conservation of stone.IMPORTANCE Comprehensive analyses of the microbiomes associated with the deterioration of stone monuments may contribute to the understanding of mechanisms of deterioration, as well as to the identification of potentially beneficial or undesirable microbial communities and their genomic pathways. In our study, we demonstrated that Cyanobacteria was the predominant bacterial phylum and exhibited an increase from 2016 to 2017, while Proteobacteria showed a decreasing trend. Apart from esthetic deterioration caused by cyanobacteria and fungi, white plaque, which is composed mainly of CaCO(3) and is probably induced by Crossiella and Cyanobacteria, was also considered to be another threat to stone monuments. We showed that there was no significant correlation between microbial population variation and geographic location. Specific functional genes and pathways were also enriched in particular bacterial species. The CaCO(3) precipitation induced by an indigenous community of carbonatogenic bacteria also provides a self-inoculation approach for the conservation of stone.