A volcano in Iceland is helping scientists understand how life forms spread to new habitats

How life forms spread to new habitats is a process that is not well understood by ecologists.

A University of Arizona0led study of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland is helping paint a better picture.

The team was able to find DNA from bacteria sometimes within hours of lava solidifying into rock.

Then they would collect samples over the following days and weeks to see how much the bacteria would grow over time. They monitored the results from three different eruptions of the same volcano.

The study found that much of the first organisms to start populating the new rock were bacteria that likely came from soil and rain.

Study author Nathan Hadland with UA says one of the key findings is that the way bacteria colonized the areas was predictable.

“Because there was such a consistent nature across all of the sample sites we studied, that lends itself into this more deterministic view that, there's very consistent species that are able to survive these conditions," Hadland said.

Hadlandsays this under researched area of ecology could help scientists understand how life spread around earth in the first place.

"A major idea is that lava flow fields were one of the first locations for life to colonize land if it transitioned out of hydrothermal systems or the ocean, depending on where it originated. And so that's kind of one of the big implications of the study." he said.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications Biology.