WELCOME - ¡BIENVENIDOS!

The National Science Foundation had funded the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao to establish a Microbial Observatory (MO) in the Cabo Rojo Salterns in Puerto Rico. The salterns are composed of an estuary surrounded by natural mats that feds a series of artificial salt ponds with seawater.

Main goals

• Build a microbial observatory at the Cabo Rojo Salterns to:

          - determine changes in physicochemical

            conditions during seasons,

          - enrich for moderate and extreme halophiles,

          - cultivate novel organisms from the salt ponds

            and sediments around the ponds.

• Introduce undergraduate students to Geomicrobiology.

Cabo Rojo Salterns

Weather Station

Soon we will post monthly weather reports from the Cabo Rojo Salterns, Cabo Rojo, PR. 

Please stay tuned!

Project Summary

The microbial diversity and community structure play a key role in determining the mineralogy of microbial mat sediments.  Alteration of the geochemical characteristics of sediments through microbial community metabolism is a key process that determines which minerals prevail.  Not much is known about the interrelation between mat community composition, the respective metabolic activities and physiology of microbes in the mat with regard to geological processes such as the binding and trapping of specific minerals, precipitating and dissolving key minerals, and the production of biogenic gases.  In addition, the molecular aspects of microorganisms which have capacity to alter the sedimentology and produce or consume gases are relatively poorly studied.  We plan to use the mats from the Cabo Rojo salterns to answer such questions.