About this Research Topic
Microorganisms and viruses are an integral part of extreme environments including desert soils, hydrothermal vents, the deep subsurface, hot springs, the higher atmosphere, and polar regions. Such ecosystems also serve as extraterrestrial analogues, helping to identify key microbial traits that might enable extraterrestrial life. Advances in bioinformatics and cultivation approaches allow unprecedented insights into microbial diversity and distribution - allowing to detect novel species, to unravel their interactions, and illuminate genetic adaptations of organisms and communities to extreme environments in the ecological and evolutionary context. Meta-omic sequencing, ideally complemented with cultivation/physiological studies to support genetic observations, represent powerful tools for advancing knowledge about viral, eukaryotic, bacterial, and archaeal assemblages in extreme environments.
Despite bioinformatic advances and extensive sampling efforts, knowledge about microorganisms and viruses from extreme environments is still scarce. This is partly due to the limited accessibility of such ecosystems, causing substantial logistic and financial efforts. Furthermore, the often-limited biomass results in low nucleic acid yields, challenging meta-omic sequencing approaches. This Research Topic invites to collect the most recent insights on viruses, bacteria, archaea, and microbial eukaryotes from extreme environments, based on high-throughput sequencing efforts. Studies combining culture-independent and culture-dependent approaches are explicitly welcome.
This Research Topic focuses on different topics, which may include but are not limited to:
-Genetic adaptations and resistance mechanisms of microbes and viruses in extreme environments
-Function and evolution of microbe-microbe and host-virus interactions under harsh conditions
-Impacts of abiotic factors (temperature, salinity, pressure, radiation, aridity etc.) on viral and/or microbial communities
-Metabolic adjustments to extreme environments
-Dispersal of microbes and viruses or their genetic material across extreme environments
-Method developments enabling to study samples from extreme environments
Despite bioinformatic advances and extensive sampling efforts, knowledge about microorganisms and viruses from extreme environments is still scarce. This is partly due to the limited accessibility of such ecosystems, causing substantial logistic and financial efforts. Furthermore, the often-limited biomass results in low nucleic acid yields, challenging meta-omic sequencing approaches. This Research Topic invites to collect the most recent insights on viruses, bacteria, archaea, and microbial eukaryotes from extreme environments, based on high-throughput sequencing efforts. Studies combining culture-independent and culture-dependent approaches are explicitly welcome.
This Research Topic focuses on different topics, which may include but are not limited to:
-Genetic adaptations and resistance mechanisms of microbes and viruses in extreme environments
-Function and evolution of microbe-microbe and host-virus interactions under harsh conditions
-Impacts of abiotic factors (temperature, salinity, pressure, radiation, aridity etc.) on viral and/or microbial communities
-Metabolic adjustments to extreme environments
-Dispersal of microbes and viruses or their genetic material across extreme environments
-Method developments enabling to study samples from extreme environments
Keywords: Omics, astrobiology, viruses, microorganisms, bioinformatics
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
