Overview
- An Arizona-led team sampled hours-old lava from three Fagradalsfjall eruptions (2021–2023) and used DNA profiling to trace where colonizing microbes came from.
- Microbial diversity increased through the first year, then dropped sharply after the first winter and stabilized in following seasons.
- Initial colonizers were sourced mostly from nearby soils and airborne aerosols, with rainwater supplying most new arrivals after the winter shift.
- Machine-learning source tracking and the rare natural triplicate provided high-resolution evidence for a consistent primary succession on fresh basalt.
- The results carry astrobiology implications for volcanic terrains on Mars and were published in Communications Biology (2025), DOI 10.1038/s42003-025-09044-1.