Employing the recent advances in metagenomics to explore the karst groundwater microbiome

About ninety-five percent of global liquid freshwater is stored in the terrestrial subsurface, making it the largest terrestrial freshwater biome. Despite the importance of this water source for humanity, these systems are largely understudied from the microbiological point of view. In Slovenia, about half of the population depends on groundwater for its domestic needs. The quality of this water source and the putative presence of pathogens are not properly monitored. Accordingly, very little is known about the composition and the structure of its native prokaryotic communities. Project aims to lay ground for microbiological and ecological studies of groundwater reservoirs of Slovenian karst. It aims to identify and describe the diversity in those pristine reservoirs in which the microbiota is still present in its original splendor.