Abstract
Detailed descriptions of the consortia present in commercial mineral processing operations have emerged in recent years, improving our understanding of the biology and the ecology of bioleaching. In spite of this progress, one of the aspects of biomining microbial ecology that remains un-tackled is that of virus-host interactions. The effects of viruses on the dynamics of the bioleaching microbial consortia and their impact in metal recovery is presently unknown. To begin addressing this issue we asked a basic question: ¿Are there viruses in industrial bioleaching econiches? In this work, we answer that question experimentally, assessing the number and types of viral particles recovered in the leachates from different industrial settings, using epifluorescence and transmission electron microscopy. Findings emerging from this work point to an almost null presence of viral particles in the leachates from mineral processing operations, possibly due to structural stability issues of the particles in the extreme acidic and highly oxidant conditions favoured by their potential microbial hosts. In turn, DNA-loaded viral-size vesicles of presently unknown function are frequent and abundant in all samples analysed.
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