Today’s visit was extremely interesting – especially the microbiology aspect of it. It is not my central field of work, but I have done quite a bit of work concerning isolation and identification of bacteria and fungi from snow. Their (potential) ability to metabolise the VOC that I am trying to determine presents an interesting pathway for their fate in the environment. Snow with its huge surface and favourable properties (especially during the time of snow melt) could provide an suitable matrix for the breakdown of VOC by microbial species.
The group in Vienna works mostly on the role of fungi in the snow pack in conjunction with the determination of organic matter, mostly as a sum parameter – not the speciation work that I do. It was most interesting to hear about the methodolgy that they use and how they interpret their results.