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Lichenized association between Septonema tormes sp. nov., a coccoid cyanobacterium, and a green alga with an unforeseen biopreservation effect of Villamayor sandstone at ‘Casa Lis’ of Salamanca, Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1997

I. GRONDONA
Affiliation:
Departamento de Microbiología y Genética, Universidad de Salamanca, Av. Campo Charro, s/n, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
E. MONTE
Affiliation:
Departamento de Microbiología y Genética, Universidad de Salamanca, Av. Campo Charro, s/n, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
V. RIVES
Affiliation:
Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Universidad de Salamanca, Av. Campo Charro, s/n, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
M. A. VICENTE
Affiliation:
Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología, CSIC, Cordel de Merinas, s/n, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
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Abstract

‘Casa Lis’ is the most characteristic building in Salamanca, Spain, belonging to the modernist trend. It was built with Villamayor sandstone from nearby Salamanca, which has high porosity providing an easy medium for water absorption and capillarity. During a restoration process on the southern wall, near an underground water flow, two well defined, naturally developed layers were observed on the sandstone surface: an outer, hard crust with greyish shades and whitish salt patches resulting from rising damp, and an inner, green layer with organic material linking the sandstone to the inorganic crust. The microbiological study of this biofilm showed an ecologically obligate, stable mutualism between a dematiaceous mitosporic fungus (Septonema tormes sp. nov.), a coccoid cyanobacterium (Cyanothece-group) and a green alga (Gloeocystis rupestris), with the accumulation of different metabolites excreted by these microorganisms. The case reported here is one of the few studies where a microbial mat, in association with the external crust, avoids a further weathering of the stone because of an unforeseen biopreservation effect due to the maintenance of humidity at constant levels under the crust avoids changes in clay swelling and subsequent surface arenization of the sandstone. The lichenized complex of a mitosporic mycobiont and two photobionts, in this case, has not been reported before as a stable association on this kind of substrate.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
The British Mycological Society 1997

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