Related Research Articles
An extremophile is an organism that is able to live in extreme environments, i.e. environments with conditions approaching or expanding the limits of what known life can adapt to, such as extreme temperature, radiation, salinity, or pH level.
In physical geography, tundra is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sámi word тӯндар meaning "uplands", "treeless mountain tract". There are three regions and associated types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra.
An endolith or endolithic is an organism that is able to acquire the necessary resources for growth in the inner part of a rock, mineral, coral, animal shells, or in the pores between mineral grains of a rock. Many are extremophiles, living in places long considered inhospitable to life. The distribution, biomass, and diversity of endolith microorganisms are determined by the physical and chemical properties of the rock substrate, including the mineral composition, permeability, the presence of organic compounds, the structure and distribution of pores, water retention capacity, and the pH. Normally, the endoliths colonize the areas within lithic substrates to withstand intense solar radiation, temperature fluctuations, wind, and desiccation. They are of particular interest to astrobiologists, who theorize that endolithic environments on Mars and other planets constitute potential refugia for extraterrestrial microbial communities.
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microbiomics.
In microbiology, the phyllosphere is the total above-ground surface of a plant when viewed as a habitat for microorganisms. The phyllosphere can be further subdivided into the caulosphere (stems), phylloplane (leaves), anthosphere (flowers), and carposphere (fruits). The below-ground microbial habitats are referred to as the rhizosphere and laimosphere. Most plants host diverse communities of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists. Some are beneficial to the plant, others function as plant pathogens and may damage the host plant or even kill it.
Bacteria are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, and the deep biosphere of Earth's crust. Bacteria play a vital role in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients and the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of dead bodies; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process. In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, extremophile bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide and methane, to energy. Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationships with plants and animals. Most bacteria have not been characterised and there are many species that cannot be grown in the laboratory. The study of bacteria is known as bacteriology, a branch of microbiology.
Mary Eleanor Gillham MBE was a British naturalist, university lecturer, and writer, who was resident for many years in Gwaelod y Garth and then Radyr, in Cardiff, Wales until her death.
Antarctica is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
Archaea is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria, but this term has fallen out of use.
Terrabacteria is a taxon containing approximately two-thirds of prokaryote species, including those in the gram positive phyla as well as the phyla "Cyanobacteria", Chloroflexota, and Deinococcota.
Antarctica is one of the most physically and chemically extreme terrestrial environments to be inhabited by lifeforms. The largest plants are mosses, and the largest animals that do not leave the continent are a few species of insects.
Bacterial phyla constitute the major lineages of the domain Bacteria. While the exact definition of a bacterial phylum is debated, a popular definition is that a bacterial phylum is a monophyletic lineage of bacteria whose 16S rRNA genes share a pairwise sequence identity of ~75% or less with those of the members of other bacterial phyla.
Saccharibacteria, formerly known as TM7, is a major bacterial lineage. It was discovered through 16S rRNA sequencing.
A microbiome is the community of microorganisms that can usually be found living together in any given habitat. It was defined more precisely in 1988 by Whipps et al. as "a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably well-defined habitat which has distinct physio-chemical properties. The term thus not only refers to the microorganisms involved but also encompasses their theatre of activity". In 2020, an international panel of experts published the outcome of their discussions on the definition of the microbiome. They proposed a definition of the microbiome based on a revival of the "compact, clear, and comprehensive description of the term" as originally provided by Whipps et al., but supplemented with two explanatory paragraphs. The first explanatory paragraph pronounces the dynamic character of the microbiome, and the second explanatory paragraph clearly separates the term microbiota from the term microbiome.
Cristina Takacs-Vesbach is an American microbial ecologist conducting research on the productivity, diversity, and function of microbial communities living at the two extremes of temperature found on Earth-Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys and Yellowstone National Park's thermal springs.
Bacterioplankton counting is the estimation of the abundance of bacterioplankton in a specific body of water, which is useful information to marine microbiologists. Various counting methodologies have been developed over the years to determine the number present in the water being observed. Methods used for counting bacterioplankton include epifluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, measures of productivity through frequency of dividing cells (FDC), thymidine incorporation, and leucine incorporation.
Marine viruses are defined by their habitat as viruses that are found in marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. Viruses are small infectious agents that can only replicate inside the living cells of a host organism, because they need the replication machinery of the host to do so. They can infect all types of life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Marine prokaryotes are marine bacteria and marine archaea. They are defined by their habitat as prokaryotes that live in marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. All cellular life forms can be divided into prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells have a nucleus enclosed within membranes, whereas prokaryotes are the organisms that do not have a nucleus enclosed within a membrane. The three-domain system of classifying life adds another division: the prokaryotes are divided into two domains of life, the microscopic bacteria and the microscopic archaea, while everything else, the eukaryotes, become the third domain.
The plant microbiome, also known as the phytomicrobiome, plays roles in plant health and productivity and has received significant attention in recent years. The microbiome has been defined as "a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably well-defined habitat which has distinct physio-chemical properties. The term thus not only refers to the microorganisms involved but also encompasses their theatre of activity".
Chris Greening is a biochemist, microbiologist, and academic. He is a Professor of Microbiology and leads the One Health Microbiology group and Global Change Research Program of the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is most known for his work on the basis, role, and significance of the microbial metabolism of trace gases such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. He has held prestigious fellowships from the CSIRO (2014-2016), Australian Research Council (2017-2019), and National Health and Medical Research Council (2020-2024) and was awarded the Fenner Medal 2022 from the Australian Academy of Science.
References
- 1 2 UNSW: Dr Belinda Carlene Ferrari (accessed 17 August 2016)
- ↑ "Associate Professor Belinda Ferrari". UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences. Archived from the original on 9 May 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
- ↑ Ji, M; Greening, C; Vanwonterghem, I; Carere, CR; Bay, SK; Steen, JA; Montgomery, K; Lines, T; Beardall, J; van Dorst, J; Snape, I; Stott, MB; Hugenholtz, P; Ferrari, BC (21 December 2017). "Atmospheric trace gases support primary production in Antarctic desert surface soil". Nature. 552 (7685): 400–403. Bibcode:2017Natur.552..400J. doi: 10.1038/nature25014 . hdl: 2440/124244 . PMID 29211716.
- ↑ Fleischfresser, Stephen (7 December 2017), "Air-eating bacteria found in Antarctica", Cosmos , archived from the original on 1 April 2019, retrieved 8 May 2018
- ↑ Medrano, Kastalia (9 December 2017). "Bizarre Antarctic bacteria that live on air alone could show exactly how alien life works". Newsweek.
