Extremophilic microbial communities on photovoltaic panel surfaces: a two-year study

Solar panel surfaces can be colonized by microorganisms adapted to desiccation, temperature fluctuations and solar radiation. Although the taxonomic and functional composition of these communities has been studied, the microbial colonization process remains unclear. In the present work, we have monitored this microbial colonization process during 24 months by performing weekly measurements of the photovoltaic efficiency, carrying out 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing, and studying the effect of antimicrobial compounds on the composition of the microbial biocenosis. This is the first time a long-term study of the colonization process of solar panels has been performed, and our results reveal that species richness and biodiversity exhibit seasonal fluctuations and that there is a trend towards an increase or decrease of specialist (solar panel-adapted) and generalist taxa, respectively. On the former, extremophilic bacterial genera Deinococcus, Hymenobacter and Roseomonas and fungal Neocatenulostroma, Symmetrospora and Sporobolomyces tended to dominate the biocenosis; whereas Lactobacillus sp or Stemphyllium exhibited a decreasing trend. This profile was deeply altered by washing the panels with chemical agents (Virkon), but this did not lead to an increase of the solar panels efficiency. Our results show that solar panels are extreme environments that force the selection of a particular microbial community.