Реферат: Kartchner Caverns, a cave formed in carbonate rock near Benson Arizona, US, was discovered in 1974. The land containing the cave was purchased by the State
of Arizona in 1988 and the cave was then carefully developed for tourism (opening in 1999) with the goal of maintaining its status as a living (dripping) cave. Its
careful development and the fact that it is considered one of the world’s top ten caves formed in carbonate rock in terms of mineral and speleothem diversity, led
the National Science Foundation to provide funds to designate Kartchner Caverns as a Microbial Observatory (MO) in 2006. The goal of the Kartchner MO is to study
the microbial communities in the cave and their possible role in speleothem growth. Facets of research that have been performed in the Kartchner MO include (i) a
comparison of intra- and inter-speleothem variability in bacterial community profiles; where variability among samples was compared using denaturing gradient gel
electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of 16S rRNA gene PCR products from community DNA extracts obtained from speleothems, (ii) identification of the dominant
archaeal and bacterial populations on two speleothems as measured by excision and sequencing of DGGE bands and by 16S rRNA Phylochip analysis, (iii) the impact of
tourism on microbial communities found in Kartchner as measured by the dominant cultured isolates in toured versus untoured portions of the cave, (iv) a comparison of
the cultured vs. noncultured bacterial communities found on Kartchner speleothems, and (v) physiological attributes of cultured isolates from Kartchner including calcium carbonate deposition, and production of antimicrobials, siderophores, and biosurfactants.