Microbial biofilms are common on lithic surfaces, including stone buildings. However, the ecology of these communities is poorly understood. Few studies have focused on the spatial characteristics of lithobiontic biofilms, despite the fact that spatial structure has been demonstrated to influence ecosystem function (and hence biodegradation) and community diversity. Furthermore, relatively few ...

We describe a mechanistic basis for maintaining an alternative degraded stable state on coral reefs: sedimentladen algal turfs. Using remote underwater video cameras we quantified rates of herbivory by coral reef fishes on epilithic algal turfs with natural and experimentally reduced sediment loads. Removal of sediment increased overall fish feeding rates 3.8-fold, and resulted in a decrease in...

In this report we describe different combinations of physical separation and antibiotic treatment to remove associated bacteria from freshwater diatoms. Diatoms were purified either from natural epilithic biofilms or from uni-algal cultures. We found that for most strains different purification procedures have to be combined individually. In a new approach we show that for some diatom strains t...

The diversity of purple phototrophic bacteria in algae-dominated biofilm of a streambed in Tama River, Japan was investigated. Clone library analysis of the pufM gene encoding a subunit of the photochemical reaction center of purple bacteria detected 18 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in several classes of Proteobacteria. Most of the OTUs showed less than 85% identity to the PufM amino acid ...