Bücher der Reihe Life in Extreme Environments

This book aims to bring together a wide variety of topics ranging from the abiotic and biological factors that shape arid soil environments and the development of initial soils. The book considers different levels of biological organization, the movement of nutrients through these systems, and how these soils will respond to a changing climate.

This book provides a broad overview how extremophiles can be used in biotechnology, including for the production and degradation of compounds. It reviews various recent discoveries and applications related to a large variety of extremophiles, considering not only prokaryotes, but also eukaryotes and viruses.

This book will highlight advanced techniques used for studying microorganisms in extreme environments. Recent technological leaps in the study of microorganisms in the environment now make it possible to comprehensively study microbes in the environment. Extreme environments could benefit from the application of these techniques, but many challenges such as low biomass, low activity and slow growth has prevented their wide adoption.

Over the last two decades, exploration of the deep subsurface biosphere has developed into a major research area. New findings constantly challenge our concepts of global biogeochemical cycles and the ultimate limits to life. In order to explain our observations from deep subsurface ecosystems it is necessary to develop truly interdisciplinary approaches, ranging from microbiology and geochemistry to physics and modeling. This book aims to bring together a wide variety of topics, covering the broad range of issues that are associated with deep biosphere exploration. Not only does the book present case studies of selected projects, but also treats questions arising from our current knowledge. Despite nearly two decades of research, there are still many boundaries to exploration caused by technical limitations and one section of the book is devoted to these technical challenges and the latest developments in this field. This volume will be of high interest to biologists, chemists and earth scientists all working on the deep biosphere.

The series publishes topical volumes in the rapidly growing field of microbial life in extreme environments. This includes all habitats at the edge of survivability ranging from equatorial to polar regions, from marine to terrestrial environments and from surface to deep ecosystems. Environmental niches that are for instance characterized by extraordinarily hot, cold, acidic, alkaline or dry conditions, or which are subjected to high salinity, radiation or pressure, are inhabited by extremophilic microorganisms. The vast majority of these extremophiles, representing numerous and diverse lineages from across the three domains of life: Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya.Special emphasis is placed on the understanding of the structure and function of microbial communities in extreme environments, their life strategies and adaptation mechanisms as well as their reaction to changing environmental conditions. This book series will be a useful reference for advancing our understanding of the origin of life and for exploring the biotechnology potential of these fascinating microorganisms.

Today's microorganisms represent the vast majority of biodiversity on Earth and have survived nearly 4 billion years of evolutionary change. However, we still know little about the processes of evolution as applied to microorganisms and microbial populations. Microbial evolution occurred and continues to take place in a vast variety of environmental conditions that range from anoxic to oxic, from hot to cold, from free-living to symbiotic, etc. Some of these physicochemical conditions are considered "e;extreme"e;, particularly when inhabitants are limited to microorganisms. It is easy to imagine that microbial life in extreme environments is somehow more constrained and perhaps subjected to different evolutionary pressures. But what do we actually know about microbial evolution under extreme conditions and how can we apply that knowledge to other conditions? Appealingly, extreme environments with their relatively limited numbers of inhabitants can serve as good model systems for the study of evolutionary processes. A look at the microbial inhabitants of today's extreme environments provides a snapshot in time of evolution and adaptation to extreme conditions. These adaptations manifest at different levels from established communities and species to genome content and changes in specific genes that result in altered function or gene expression. But as a recent (2011) report from the American Academy of Microbiology observes: "e;A complex issue in the study of microbial evolution is unraveling the process of evolution from that of adaptation. In many cases, microbes have the capacity to adapt to various environmental changes by changing gene expression or community composition as opposed to having to evolve entirely new capabilities."e; We have learned much about how microbes are adapted to extreme conditions but relatively little is known about these adaptations evolved. How did the different processes of evolution such as mutation, immigration, horizontal (lateral) gene transfer, recombination, hybridization, genetic drift, fixation, positive and negative selection, and selective screens contribute to the evolution of these genes, genomes, microbial species, communities, and functions? What are typical rates of these processes? How prevalent are each of these processes under different conditions? This book explores the current state of knowledge about microbial evolution under extreme conditions and addresses the following questions: What is known about the processes of microbial evolution (mechanisms, rates, etc.) under extreme conditions? Can this knowledge be applied to other systems and what is the broader relevance? What remains unknown and requires future research? These questions will be addressed from several perspectives including different extreme environments, specific organisms, and specific evolutionary processes.