Soil microbiota along Ayoloco glacier retreat area of Iztaccíhuatl volcano, Mexico

Results confirm earlier studies on microbial succession in the Alps, North American Rocky Mountains and the Andes. The initial increase of fungi, and their subsequent decrease might be explained by the resource heterogeneity hypothesis. The results also indicate that in the future much larger sample sets should be used to make best use of the retreat continuum at this type of subtropical glaciers, and to perform a metagenomic analysis to deepen the understanding of microbial succcession at a genus or species level.