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Photosynthesis in Extreme Environments

Á. Aguilera,V. Souza-Egipsy,R. Amils

Published 2012 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

Our ongoing exploration of Earth has led to continued discoveries of life in environments that have been previously considered uninhabitable. For example, we find thriving communities in the boiling hot springs of Yellowstone, the frozen deserts of Antarctica, the concentrated sulfuric acid in acid-mine drainages, and the ionizing radiation fields in nuclear reactors (González-Toril et al., 2003; Lebedinsky et al., 2007; Pointing et al., 2009). We find some microbes that grow only in brine and require saturated salts to live, and we find others that grow in the deepest parts of the oceans and require 500 to 1000 bars of hydrostatic pressure (Horikoshi, 1998; Ma et al., 2010). Life has evolved strategies that allow it to survive even beyond the daunting physical and chemical limits to which it has adapted to grow. To survive, organisms can assume forms that enable them to withstand freezing, complete desiccation, starvation, high levels of radiation exposure, and other physical or chemical challenges. Furthermore, they can survive exposure to such conditions for weeks, months, years, or even centuries. We need to identify the limits for growth and survival and to understand the molecular mechanisms that define these limits. Biochemical studies will also reveal inherent features of biomolecules and biopolymers that define the physico-chemical limits of life under extreme conditions. Broadening our knowledge both of the range of environments on Earth that are inhabitable by microbes and of their adaptation to these habitats will be critical for understanding how life might have established itself and survived. The diversity of life on Earth today is a result of the dynamic interplay between genetic opportunity, metabolic capability, and environmental change. For most of their existence, Earth’s habitable environments have been dominated by microorganisms and subjected to their metabolism and evolution. As a consequence of geological, climatologic, and microbial processes acting across geological time scales, the physical-chemical environments on Earth have been changing, thereby determining the path of evolution of subsequent life. For example, the release of molecular oxygen by cyanobacteria as a by product of photosynthesis as well as the colonization of Earth’s surface by metazoan life contributed to fundamental, global environmental changes. The altered environments, in turn, posed novel evolutionary opportunities to the organisms present, which ultimately led to the formation of our planet’s major animal and plant species.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2012

  • Venue

    Unknown venue

  • Publication date

    2012-02-24

  • Fields of study

    Biology, Environmental Science

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.5772/26940
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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