Life can be found everywhere on Earth, evolving ways to survive even at the strangest and most inhospitable places such as the volcanic systems. Studying microbes and finding how they can live at volcanoes can help us set the boundaries of life on Earth and get more insights into microbial survival strategies. Microbial monitoring of volcanoes can provide significant genetic and genomic information with potential biotechnological applications. Despite the vast possibilities of environmental biotechnology in providing goods and services to society, only a small fraction of the enormous biodiversity at the extreme habitats of volcanic systems has been explored to date. The aim of this session is to bring together scientists who work on microbial genomic monitoring of volcanic sites in order to understand the benefits of microbial volcanic exploration and exploitation to society. We particularly encourage submissions of presentations that are related to monitoring work of volcanic sites by using -omics technologies (e.g., genomics, metagenomics, metabolomics) and cultivation-based approaches.

Core connection between the proposed session and societal risk mitigation: The aim of this session is to bring together scientists who work on microbial genomic monitoring of volcanic sites in order to understand the benefits that can bring the microbial volcanic exploration and exploitation to society.