Microbial Investigation on Water and Soil in the Tatra National Park

What is it about?

Tatra National Park is considered as the most visited protected area in Slovakia. Striking a balance between the preservation of natural resources and opportunities for public recreation often forces responsible authorities to make compromises between visitation impacts and protection. In this case, the microbial investigation of recreation effects on water and soil in the Tatra National Park were studied. Water and soil samples were processed for community level physiological profiling using Biolog EcoPlates. The obtained results of carbon source utilization abilities of bacterial communities in both valleys suggested lower diversity in Javorová Valley, which corresponds probably with less visitor intensity, with less anthropogenic impact as well as with less risk of xenobiotics presence in environment.

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Photo by Lucas Clara on Unsplash

Photo by Lucas Clara on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Identification and comparison of microbial community strains in selected localities should be integrant of visitation impact evaluation in the high mountain environment. Microbial community analyses provide information about the presence of strange strains, also pathogens in these ecosystems, which can survive in spite of allochthonous conditions and some of them can adapt to these conditions. Changes in environment, in contrast, subsequently provide changes in microbial community structures. In our study, the metabolic analyses of bacterial communities in the valley suggested a lower diversity in Javorová valley, which corresponds probably with less intensity of visitors, with less anthropogenic impact as well as with less risk of xenobiotics presence in the environment. Commonly, the strains obtained the most are endospore forming, psychrotolerant species, which correspond with climatic, seasonal and geographical conditions, like Pseudomonas, Bacillus or Paenibacillus away of path. But, the relatedness of soil sample strains in both valleys is increasing with rising altitude, with distance away path; in contrast, according to the dendrograms, the relatedness of water sample strains in both valleys increases with increasing distance sample areas from chalet and frequent visitors’ places.

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