Airborne microorganisms in Lascaux Cave (France)

*[email protected] 2007). In the last 50 years the cave suffered several microbiological crises (outbreak of microorganisms threatening the paintings) due to the invasion of the alga Bracteacoccus minor in 1963 (Lefèvre, 1974) and the fungus Fusarium solani in 2001 (Dupont et al., 2007). At present, the paintings are threatened by black stains produced by the fungus Ochroconis lascauxensis (Martin-Sanchez et al., 2012a) as documented in the pictures published by Bastian et al. (2010) and Jurado Lobo et al. (2010). In the last few years several reports on the microbiology of this cave were published, which contributed to understand the complex processes of microbial colonization and biodeterioration of the cave and its paintings (Bastian et al., 2009, 2010; MartinSanchez et al., 2012 a,b; Saiz-Jimenez et al., 2012). One of the aspects more neglected in cave research is the study of cave aerobiology, although this issue is of great interest for a correct cave management. INTRODUCTION