Living at the Extremes: Extremophiles and the Limits of Life in a Planetary Context

Living at the Extremes: Extremophiles and the Limits of Life in a Planetary Context Nancy Merino1,2,3, Heidi S. Aronson4, Diana P. Bojanova1, Jayme Feyhl-Buska1, Michael L. Wong5,6, Shu Zhang7 and Donato Giovannelli2,8,9,10* 1Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States 2Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan 3Biosciences and Biotechnology Division, Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Livermore, CA, United States 4Department of Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States 5Department of Astronomy – Astrobiology Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States 6NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States 7Section of Infection and Immunity, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States 8Department of Biology, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy 9Department of Marine and Coastal Science, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, United States 10Institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnology, National Research Council of Italy, Ancona, Italy Prokaryotic life has dominated most of the evolutionary history of our planet, evolving to occupy virtually all available environmental niches. Extremophile...
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research