Extreme Environments: Microbial and Biochemical Diversity

Dear Colleagues,

Terrestrial and marine environments comprise a large variety of extreme habitats, which can permit life only characterized by the highest degree of adaptation. These life frontiers include, for instance, the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, the highest mountains, the deep oceanic trenches and biosphere, the permafrost regions, the hydrothermal vents, and the hyper-saline, hyper-alkaline and hyper-acidic environments. Here, microorganisms (extremophiles or poly-extremophiles) often represent the last boundary of life, where the highly stressful conditions have forced them to evolve a plethora of adaptations at the taxonomical, morphological and biochemical levels. This has resulted in very broad microbial diversity that allows microbes to cope with highly stressful environmental parameters, such as very high/low temperatures, high salinity, extreme pH and high hydrostatic pressure. In addition, particularly in some marine environments, the combination of different stressful parameters makes live even more difficult, which requires unique adaptation strategies. The unique features of extremophilic microbial diversity could be investigated both at the ecological and biotechnological level. At the ecological level, it is important to describe the communities harboured by these habitats, their adaptation strategies and relations with the environments. On the other hand, members of these communities show very interesting chemical/biochemical diversity, which could be exploited in traditional and new fields of biotechnology. However, since the majority of the microbial communities are represented by unculturable fractions, molecular (culture-independent) methods are often requested in their characterization. The topic on “Extreme Environments: Microbial and Biochemical Diversity” aims to offer a wide framework for the diffusion of advanced research that investigates both the microbial diversity and its biochemical peculiarities in extreme environments. In this context, every high-quality contribution, by basic or applied scientists, that addresses new aspects of the extremophilic microbial life, together with review papers reporting the “state of the art” of specific parts of this subject, will be considered.

Prof. Dr. Massimiliano Fenice
Dr. Susanna Gorrasi
Dr. Marcella Pasqualetti
Topic Editors