High Bacterial Diversity in Epilithic Biofilms of Oligotrophic Mountain Lakes

Abstract Benthic microbial biofilms attached to rocks (epilithic) are major sites of carbon cycling and can dominate ecosystem primary production in oligotrophic lakes.We studied the bacterial community composition of littoral epilithic biofilms in five connected oligotrophic high mountain lakes located at different altitudes by genetic fingerprinting and clone libraries of the 16S rRNA gene…