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Many Microorganisms and some macro-organisms can live under extreme conditions. For example, high and low temperature, acidic and alkaline conditions, high salt areas, high pressure, toxic compounds, high level of ionizing radiation, anoxia and absence of light, etc. Many organisms inhabit environments characterized by more than one form of stress (Polyextremophiles). Among them are those who live in hypersaline and alkaline, hot and acidic, cold/hot and high hydrostatic pressure, etc. Polyextremophiles found in desert regions have to copy with intense UV irradiation and desiccation, high as well as low temperatures, and low availability of water and nutrients. This book provides novel results of application to polyextremophiles research ranging from nanotechnology to synthetic biology to the origin of life and beyond.
List of contents
PART 1: OPENING CHAPTERS.- Introduction.- Foreword.- Preface.- List of Authors and Their Addresses.- PART 2: GENERAL ASPECTS.- Polyextremophiles and the Constraints for Terrestrial Habitability.- Life on the Edge and Astrobiology: Who Is Who in the Polyextremophiles World.- The Dynamic Genomes of Acidophiles.- PART 3: HALOPHILES.- Two Centuries of Microbiological Research in the Wadi Natrun, Egypt: A Model System for the Study of the Ecology, Physiology, and Taxonomy of Haloalkaliphilic Microorganisms.- Adaptation in Haloalkaliphiles and Natronophilic Bacteria.- A Random Biogeochemical Walk into Three Soda Lakes of the Western USA: With an Introduction to a Few of their Microbial Denizens.- Halophilic, Acidophilic, and Haloacidophilic Prokaryotes.- Life in Magnesium- and Calcium-Rich Hypersaline Environments: Salt Stress by Chaotropic Ions.- Survival Strategies of Halophilic Oligotrophic and Desiccation Resistant Prokaryotes.- Radiation Resistance in Extremophiles: Fending Off Multiple Attacks.- PART 4: THERMOPHILES.- Thermoalkaliphilic Microbes.- Acido- and Thermophilic Microorganisms, Their Features and Identification of Novel Enzymes or Pathways.- Microbial Diversity in Acidic High Temperature Steam Vents.- PART 5: PSYCHROPHILES.- Left Out in the Cold: Life in Cryoenvironments.- Microbial Diversity and Enzymes in Ikaite Columns; A Cold and Alkaline Environment in Greenland.- Microbial Communities Thriving in Various Ice Ecosystems.- Snow Algae. Adaptation Strategies to Survive on Snow and Ice.- Adaptation of Antarctic Freshwater Green Algae to the Extreme Environments.- PART 6: PRESSURE.- Deep Sub-Surface Oil Reservoirs as Poly-Extreme Habitats for Microbial Life. A Current Review.- Expanding Limits for Life to a New Dimension: Microbial Growth at Hypergravity.- PART 7: OXYGEN RELATIONSHIPS.- Microbial Eukaryotes in Marine Oxygen Minimum Zones.- Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basins as Model Systems for Environmental Selection of Microbial Plankton.-Microbial Eukaryotes in Hypersaline Anoxic Deep Sea Basins.- Life at High Salt and Low Oxygen: How Do the Halobacteriaceae Cope with Low Oxygen Concentrations in their Environment?.- PART 8: SELECTED ORGANISMS.- Niches and Adaptations of Polyextremotolerant Black Fungi.- Polyextremophilic Photoautotrophic Eukaryotic Algae.- Extremophilic Magnetotactic Bacteria.- Multicellular Extremophiles - The Case of the Tardigrades.- PART 9: FINAL COMMENTS.- Polyextremophiles - Summary and Conclusions.- Organism Index.- Subject Index .- Author Index.
Summary
Many Microorganisms and some macro-organisms can live under extreme conditions. For example, high and low temperature, acidic and alkaline conditions, high salt areas, high pressure, toxic compounds, high level of ionizing radiation, anoxia and absence of light, etc. Many organisms inhabit environments characterized by more than one form of stress (Polyextremophiles). Among them are those who live in hypersaline and alkaline, hot and acidic, cold/hot and high hydrostatic pressure, etc. Polyextremophiles found in desert regions have to copy with intense UV irradiation and desiccation, high as well as low temperatures, and low availability of water and nutrients. This book provides novel results of application to polyextremophiles research ranging from nanotechnology to synthetic biology to the origin of life and beyond.
Additional text
From the book reviews:
“It is a document of the terrestrial ecology of free-living microorganisms. … The utility of the volume is enhanced by its general readability; any undergraduate with a basic understanding of microbiology will benefit from reading it. This accessibility is augmented by the color plates that are used throughout the text. … Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” (P. K. Strother, Choice, Vol. 52 (2), October, 2014)
Report
From the book reviews:
"It is a document of the terrestrial ecology of free-living microorganisms. ... The utility of the volume is enhanced by its general readability; any undergraduate with a basic understanding of microbiology will benefit from reading it. This accessibility is augmented by the color plates that are used throughout the text. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." (P. K. Strother, Choice, Vol. 52 (2), October, 2014)
