Genetic Basis of Adaptation to Extreme Environments

Extreme environments are abundant on Earth, including toxic waste, organic solvents, heavy metals, and other habitats that were considered inhospitable for living. To cope with such stressors, extremophiles have often evolved complex adaptations. The scientific community has been intrigued by the fascinating organisms that inhabit extreme environments for decades. Understanding the genetic basis of adaptations to extreme environments is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology.

This Research Topic will focus on the naturally occurring extreme habitats, which is regarded as evolutionary experiments. The rapid development of sequencing technologies enabled the discovery of molecular underpinnings of extreme environment adaptation by comparative studies. However, this field still remains in its infancy. Our aim is to identify the genetics basis of organisms adaptation to extreme environments based on the data sets from next-generation sequencing in various species, which will shed light on the deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

We welcome the submissions of Reviews, Original Research, Date Report, Brief Research Report, and Opinion Articles that are related to this specific topic, but are not limited to:

·      gene variation under extreme environment

·      gene expression changes under extreme environment

·      gene regulatory network in response to the extreme environment

·      evo-devo under extreme environment