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Category: Environmental Microbiology
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Written by the world’s leading scientists in Arctic and Antarctic microbiology, Polar Microbiologysheds new light on the microbial ecology and physiology of the Earth’s polar regions and offers a survey of what is known and not known about the microbial inhabitants of polar environments.
Polar Microbiology addresses the adaptations and physiology of cold-adapted microorganisms, explores the ecological role that polar microbial communities play in biogeochemical cycling, and examines the challenges that polar and subpolar microorganisms encounter.
The study of polar microbiology offers insights into the fundamentals of life on earth as well as critical environmental issues such as climate change, ozone depletion, and elemental cycling. Designed for a general microbiology audience as well as for scientists and students in all areas of biology and geomicrobiology, Polar Microbiologyhighlights and analyzes the significance of recent findings and set forth avenues for further research.
The book also
Hardcover, 312 pages, illustrations, index.
“An exciting introduction to the rapidly emerging field of cold biosphere microbiology, this book provides a compelling overview of how microbial life survives and even thrives in the coldest regions of our planet, and the implications for potential life on other icy worlds.”
─ Warwick F. Vincent, Director, Centre for Northern Studies (CEN: Centre d'Etudes Nordiques), Professor & Canada Research Chair, Dept. de Biologie, Laval University
“Polar Microbiology capsulizes a wide swath of knowledge about microbial life in the cold. This book will help launch new understanding of the perplexing behaviors of polar microorganisms—organisms that drive ecosystems critical to the functioning of the earth.”
─ Joshua Schimel, Chair, Environmental Studies Program & Professor, Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Robert V. Miller, PhD, is Regents Professor and Head of the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department at Oklahoma State University (OSU). Since earning his doctorate at the University of Illinois, he has been awarded 32 research grants, published 200 works, including 5 co-authored books, and trained 16 Doctoral and 7 Masters students. Miller is a former Cardiff University Distinguished International Scholar and frequent invited lecturer on polar microbiology.
Lyle Whyte, PhD, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University, leads the Canadian Astrobiology Training Program. He completed his doctorate at the University of Waterloo and has served as a Research Officer at the Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada. His research examines microbial biodiversity, activity, and ecology in polar ecosystems, especially permafrost and unique cold saline springs, in the emerging field of cryomicrobiology, the exploration of the low-temperature limits of microbial life.
This chapter talks about the development of culture-independent, molecular methods that have revolutionized the field and the understanding of molecular ecology. Through the use of these techniques, it is now apparent that the earlier culture-based studies were not a representative reflection of the dominant microorganisms in many psychrophilic habitats. Cyanobacteria present in Dry Valleys mineral soils are considered to be the major primary producers and contribute significantly to microbial diversity. Lithic communities are classified by the specific environmental niche they reside in, and hypoliths, chasmoliths, and cryptoendoliths are further discussed in this chapter. The majority of bacteria isolated from permafrost are aerobic and include a number of coryneforms, endospore formers, sulfate reducers, nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, and cellulose degraders. The microbial mat bacterial diversity of 10 Dry Valleys lakes was assessed by culturing techniques (heterotrophic growth conditions and fatty acid analysis). Microbial mats from Markham and Ward Hunt Ice Shelves showed species homogeneity in the vertical profile, which has not been seen previously in Antarctic mats, possibly due to differences in mat thickness. The stratified Antarctic mats from the McMurdo Ice Shelf were up to 8 cm thick in places, while the Arctic mats in this study were approximately 2 cm. Using metagenomic methods researchers can assess the diversity of culturable and uncultured organisms, including rare taxa.
Modern molecular PCR-based methods, typically targeting the 16S rRNA gene, have now revolutionized the field of environmental microbiology and have allowed culture-independent surveys of natural in situ microbial communities. These new approaches have unearthed a wide diversity and ubiquitous presence of Archaea in nonextreme environments such as soils, sediments, and oceans. The archaeal domain is split into two major phyla, the Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota. In spite of the extreme environmental conditions in the polar regions, through the application of culture-independent 16S rRNA gene-based surveys, Archaea have been found to inhabit a wide range of polar environments. This chapter reviews the current literature describing archaeal presence and diversity in polar and subpolar habitats. Marine and terrestrial ecosystems are discussed individually for Antarctic and Arctic ecosystems, with final sections discussing comparative studies of archaeal communities between polar regions, the potential response and contribution of Archaea to future climate change models, highlights of recent findings, and future research needs. The first wide-ranging PCR-based survey of archaeal 16S rRNA genes in terrestrial Antarctic sites has recently been reported. 16S rRNA gene clone library-based methods were used to analyze archaeal communities from Kirkpatrickia varialosa, Latrunculia apicalis, Mycale acerata, Homaxinella balfourensis, and Sphaerotylus antarcticus. FISH-based studies have shown that Archaea are typically minor components of pelagic microbial communities in Arctic water bodies. The majority of microbes in any given environment are typically recalcitrant to laboratory cultivation, and as such only a handful of Archaea have been isolated from polar environments.
This chapter explores the data collected on the importance of bacteriophages to the ecology of the earth's polar regions. It examines the numbers of phage-like particles that have been observed in the ecosystems and their importance in regulating bacterial numbers and the food chain of the extreme oligotrophic environments. To understand the potential impact of bacteriophages on polar ecosystems, it is first necessary to understand the different life choices of phages and how environmental factors are known to affect them. Perhaps not surprisingly, these data suggest that bacteriophages are an important shunt in carbon cycling in the Antarctic regions as well as in the Arctic. Unlike many other studies, the authors conclude that neither bacteriovores nor bacteriophages are important regulators of bacterial numbers but that numbers are regulated by algae blooms and other factors that affect bacterial growth. Pseudolysogeny was first defined by Baess in 1971. In his review, pseudolysogeny was identified as a phage-host interaction in which the phage, following infection of the host, elicits an unstable, nonproductive response. Thus any study that enumerates total virus-like particles (VLPs) must be tempered with the understanding that not all will be infective. The data obtained in this study support the hypothesis that bacteriophages are of quantifiable significance in the carbon-flow cycle of Antarctic oligotrophic lakes. Few researchers have investigated bacteriophages in both the Arctic and Antarctic in the same study. Phylogenetic analysis of their data revealed five previously uncharacterized subgroups of T4-like bacteriophages in many environments, including the Arctic samples.
Although some fungi that are endemic to the extreme polar regions show psychrophilic behavior, the majority are instead psychrotolerant and globally distributed, ranging from the Arctic to Antarctica. It is important to note that although their natural ecological niches are in the polar environments, such fungi can also grow in human proximity; they can inhabit freezers and cold-storage rooms, and refrigerated and even frozen food. The methods used for fungal detection have been time appropriate, from the classical early microscope visualization to the more recent sophisticated DNA-based techniques, which have been complemented lately by metagenomic studies, although these have generally not been focused on fungi. Permafrost in polar regions covers more than 25% of the land surface and significant parts of the coastal sea shelves. Fungal diversity in the Arctic and Antarctic permafrost has been studied intensively over the last decade. The dominant species in Arctic glaciers environments was Penicillium crustosum, which represented on average half of all of the isolated strains from the glaciers studied. Penicillia were the most frequently occurring filamentous fungi in all of our samples, including seawater, sea ice, snow/coastal ice in tidal zones, puddles on snow, subglacial ice, and glacial meltwater.
Although interest in microbes inhabiting low-temperature environments has increased in recent years, significant gaps remain in understanding what makes certain microorganisms cold adapted. Interest in the structural, biochemical, and physiological properties of psychrophilic microorganisms has motivated investigations to characterize the adaptations that maintain enzymatic reaction rates, macromolecular stability, and homeostasis at cold temperature. This chapter provides an overview on the state of knowledge about adaptations that allow certain bacteria and archaea to persist in the coldest regions of the biosphere. In general, the proteins of psychrophilic microorganisms must maintain flexibility to perform catalysis at low temperatures, whereas thermophilic proteins are rigid to protect them from thermal denaturation. Importantly, adaptations that enhance protein flexibility reduce the activation energy needed for the formation of the enzyme-substrate complex, resulting in enhanced catalytic activity at low temperature. The chapter discusses many of the most common and generally understood biochemical and physiological adaptations that appear unique to the psychrophilic lifestyle. Psychrophilic microorganisms use a range of strategies to persist at low temperatures, including possessing catalytically efficient enzymes, synthesizing specialized lipids that increase membrane flexibility, and producing proteins that affect freezing and ice structure. Coupled with technological advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing and proteomics, one can expect that information on cold-adapted bacteria and archaea will increase in the future.
Examination of the transcriptome and proteome enables the investigation of the underlying gene and protein expression, respectively, that results in cold adaptation and ultimately permits the successful colonization of cold environments by cold-adapted microorganisms. Genomics can be used to investigate cold adaptation at the level of whole genes by examining gene content, gene expression, protein expression, and other unique features, while at the molecular level, genomic analyses may identify trends in amino acid composition, codon usage, and nucleotide content that result from cold adaptation. This chapter discusses (i) use of ecological information to discern cold-adapted microorganisms, (ii) unique gene- and protein-expression adaptations for coping with cold environment stresses, (iii) sequence adaptations that facilitate protein function at low temperature, and (iv) a case study comparing cold-adapted and warm-adapted species of the genus Exiguobacterium. The genera Exiguobacterium and Psychrobacter represent gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, respectively. Strains of these two genera were among the psychrophile genomes sequenced and used, along with other examples, to illustrate various aspects of cold adaptation. Five prominent eurypsychrophiles including the permafrost firmicute E. sibiricum 255-15 have been subjected to functional genomics experimentation at low temperature. Findings from studies with these organisms with reference to other psychrophilic and mesophilic microbes where appropriate, are presented in the chapter. The results suggested that E. sibiricum requires active transport of nutrients at lower temperature to increase substrate uptake.
Polar environments can be among the simplest environments on Earth, making them excellent models to understand ecosystem processes and the responses of microorganisms to environmental perturbations. This vulnerability and the rate of the ongoing change make polar environments a priority in climate change and bioremediation studies. This chapter covers studies based on large-scale 16S rRNA gene libraries, environmental microarrays, large-insert clone libraries, and shotgun genome sequencing that are applying metagenomic techniques to characterize and understand polar ecosystems. A recent study at sites ranging from the Falkland Islands all the way to the base of the Antarctic Peninsula used 454 GS FLX Titanium sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to compare the bacterial community structure and diversity in warmed versus control plots. This study revealed that soil warming induced significant shifts in the major soil bacterial groups like Acidobacteria and α-Proteobacteria, which led to changes in soil respiration. A recent shotgun metagenomic study in the Canadian High Arctic sequenced a permafrost sample and its overlying active-layer soil and focused particularly on genes that might be important for greenhouse gas emissions following permafrost thaw. The only metagenomic study of polar freshwater ecosystems published to date looked at the viral communities of an Antarctic lake. This study revealed that a large proportion of the viral sequences retrieved from the lake were from eukaryotic viruses and not from bacteriophages. Emerging technologies could also be interesting to apply to polar environments. For instance, bioremediation studies could benefit from metabolomics, proteomics, and newly developed reactome arrays.
The various organisms thriving in extreme environments on Earth, psychrophiles (cold-loving organisms) are the most abundant in terms of biomass, diversity, and distribution. The chapter presents an overview of the biotechnological uses of psychrophiles and of their biomolecules using selected examples. Site-specific mutants of psychrophiles are a useful tool to study cold adaptation and expression of cold-active enzymes at low temperature. At the industrial level, the best-known representative of polar microorganisms is certainly the yeast Candida antarctica, as its species name unambiguously refers to the sampling origin. Antarcticine-NF3 is a glycoprotein with antifreeze properties produced by the bacterium Pseudoalteromonas antarctica, which has been patented by Spanish researchers. It was found that Antarcticine is effective for scar treatment and re-epithelialization of wounds. Most studies on hydrocarbon bioremediation in polar regions have focused on the treatment of petroleum hydrocarbons, since increased petroleum exploration increases the risk of accidental oil release. Polar plants and animals have also found diverse applications and are worth citing in the context of the present survey. Recent developments based on cold-adapted organisms and their biomolecules have clearly demonstrated the huge potential of psychrophiles.
Terrestrial and submarine permafrost is identified as one of the most vulnerable carbon pools on Earth. In some areas, permafrost comprises upwards of 80% ice in the form of large features, such as massive ice sheets many kilometers in length; or on smaller scales, such as ice wedges and ice lenses, and as ice that fills soil pore space. Residual pockets of seawater, from the subsidence of the polar ocean, exist as saturated, salt-rich permafrost environments known as salt lenses or cryopegs. All of these permafrost features sustain microbial communities that contribute to carbon cycling in polar regions. The way in which gas is released from permafrost, i.e., the rate and pathway, determines the ratio of methane and carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere. This chapter describes the different carbon pools, carbon fluxes, and freeze-thaw stresses related to microbial activities. It then examines methane-cycling communities in Arctic active-layer and permafrost environments. The fast recovery of the microbial activity during spring suggests that carbon mineralization in thawing Arctic sediment may rapidly respond to warming, resulting in substantial changes in microbial carbon cycling and growth of microbial populations. Environmental sequences from the Laptev Sea coast consist of four specific permafrost clusters. It was hypothesized that these clusters comprise methanogenic Archaea with a specific physiological potential to survive under harsh environmental conditions. A first study on submarine permafrost of the Laptev Sea shelf demonstrated that intact DNA was extractable from late Pleistocene permafrost deposits with an age of up to 111,000 years.
At the highest taxonomic levels, microbial communities in the polar oceans are similar to those in temperate oceans, and contain diverse representatives from the three domains of life: Eukarya (protists), Bacteria, and Archaea. This chapter presents a brief overview of pelagic microbes and their diversity, vertical distribution, and influences on biogeochemistry and upper food webs. The focus is on recent advances following the application of molecular biological techniques to polar marine systems. A revolution has occurred with the application of molecular biological techniques, especially small-subunit rRNA gene surveys, and identification of Bacteria, Archaea, and picoeukaryotes is now possible. The two most abundant archaeal phyla in the ocean belong to the Euryarchaeota and Thaumarchaeota Marine Groups (MG) I, which were originally classified as part of another phylum, the Crenarchaeota. A microbial loop begins with organic matter in the ocean being taken up by bacteria; the bacteria are eaten by small flagellates that excrete organic matter, which is used by bacteria that are eaten by small flagellates. All higher trophic levels, including whales, seals, and birds at both poles and polar bears in the Arctic, ultimately depend on microbes to convert inorganic carbon and solar energy into organic carbon, maintain it in a biologically available form, and recycle nutrients.
This chapter focuses on glaciers and ice sheets, sea ice, and ice shelves of the polar regions, i.e., those latitudes above the Arctic and Antarctic Circles where glaciers and ice sheets cover a significant proportion of the land mass and where large expanses of the surface waters of the Arctic and Southern Oceans undergo an annual cycle of freezing and melting. This chapter further introduces sea ice as a microbial habitat and summarizes from some of the aforementioned reviews what is known to date about the abundance, activity, diversity, and ecology of prokaryotic sea-ice microorganisms. It provides a brief outline of the role of microorganisms in biogeochemical cycling of elements in sea ice. The majority of bacteria isolated from sea ice are pigmented and highly cold adapted, with some able to form gas vesicles. Possible cold-adaptation strategies revealed by whole-genome sequence analysis also include the production of cryoprotective osmolytes and exopolymers. Polar ice shelves are thick masses of ice floating on the ocean. They are formed through glacial ice and ice sheets pushing onto the sea or long-term accumulations of sea ice. Analysis of ice-shelf heterotrophic bacteria and microbial eukaryotes suggests phylogenetic affiliation with taxa from diverse environments and climatic zones ranging from Antarctica and other cryosphere habitats to temperate ecozones. Microbial investigations on polar glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves are still largely in their infancy, with sea-ice research being somewhat more established.
Depending on wind speed and direction, microbes are swept up from diverse terrestrial and oceanic environments and blown onto glacial ice. The activation energy for survival metabolism turns out to be ~110 kJ, but with an ~106-fold smaller preexponential factor than for unlimited growth. The arrival rates of bacteria and nonmicrobial dust blown from African desert sources to an air collector on Barbados showed similar patterns of seasonal and daily. In seeking to interpret the rapid decrease in fluorescence intensities of tryptophan (Trp) in the top 120 m of ice and the flattening of intensity values at greater depth, researchers carried out ground-truth measurements of cell concentrations in ice from several sites in Antarctica and Greenland. The main conclusion is that the depth dependence of cell concentration seen with epifluorescence microscopy is far weaker than the ~20-fold decrease with depth of the chlorophyll (Chl) and Trp fluorescence shown. The weak decrease in microbial concentration with depth suggests that both psychrophiles and nonpsychrophiles are equally able to adapt to the lower temperatures, lower nutrient availability, and immobility in ice than in oceans and soil. By using new techniques of single-cell genomics, it should be possible to track changes in their genome as a function of depth in the ice and thus to infer their mutation rates in the ocean before they reached the ice.
In light of increasing interest in the functioning of extremophilic environments and growing concerns over global warming, this chapter attempts to address some of the factors that influence life in cold polar habitats. The cryobiosphere is especially sensitive to changes in climate and itself plays an important role in gas fluxes and environmental shifts at the poles and, by extension, on the earth as a whole. This sensitivity and its consequent global impact make an understanding of polar bioclimatic interactions critical to predicting future climate change trends. During the 2001 season Warner and Miller collected data on RecA antigen concentrations in marine bacterioplankton near Palmer Station. Although the data were scattered, a direct correlation between an increased ratio of midday-to-evening induction and the extent of the stratospheric ozone depletion was observed. This chapter addresses the mechanisms by which microbes repair UV damage in their most fundamental molecule, the DNA that encodes the proteins and molecules that mediate all their life functions. Many of the hypotheses regarding the effect of global warming at the poles have focused on the high concentration of carbon trapped in the permafrost and the concept that its release will result in massive increases in microbial activity that will produce positive feedback, further exaggerating climate change. Microbial nitrous oxide production appears to be enhanced at higher water-activity concentrations and atmospheric release of nitrogen species with a biological origin from snow has been shown to occur even under conditions of low or absent light without ice-/snowmelt.
All life on Earth represents a common genetic and biochemical system descendent from a common ancestor. The other worlds in our solar system that are the most promising targets in the search for life are Mars, Europa (a moon of Jupiter), and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn). Perchlorates are also metabolically active. It is known that microorganisms on Earth are capable of using perchlorates as electron acceptors, allowing anaerobic microbial respiration to occur where perchlorate replaces oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor. Studies of the microbes in the ground ice below dry permafrost in University Valley show that there is an adapted microbial community, and RNA data show that there is microbial activity. The availability of liquid water within the Martian subsurface (permafrost or regolith) would be concentrated into eutectic brines. As such, the microorganisms that could survive and potentially remain viable under such growth conditions would most likely be halophilic cryophiles. While the northern plains represent the most likely site of recent life due to the melting of near-surface ice, the southern highlands represent the best location to find long-frozen remains of ancient life on Mars. In the outer solar system there are two worlds that potentially have liquid water under layers of ice: Europa and Enceladus. In addition to Mars, Europa, and Enceladus, there are other worlds of interest to astrobiology-and they are also icy worlds.
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Quarterly Review of Biology
This is one of the first books where a detailed view into microbial ecology (archaea, bacteria, and fungi) of polar habitats is introduced. Great attention is paid to the microbial diversity, physiological adaptations to cold, and biochemical cycling of polar microbial communities.
The first part deals with microbial diversity in polar environments. Molecular and morphological diversity in most of geographical regions across the Antarctic and the Arctic, and in most of polar habitat types—soil, lithic, permafrost, lakes, shallow wetlands (including extremes), glacial and sea ice, snow, marine (including seafloor)—is summarized. The second part shows how microorganisms adapt to cold, including genomic and metagenomic analyses together with potential biotechnology use. The ecology and biochemical cycling of polar microbial communities is introduced in the third part. This part covers the three most important habitat types: microbial carbon cycling in permafrost; polar marine microbiology; and cryospheric environment in polar regions. The most challenging last part contains three chapters: low-temperature limit of microbial growth and metabolism; climate change, ozone depletion, and life at the poles; and life in ice on other worlds. This part discusses if the origin of life could be related with low-temperature or icy environment. This very provocative topic is discussed in detail with respect of physical and chemical properties of all types of ice, including adaptations and metabolic characteristics of ice microbes. One of the most important topics describes the exchange of microbial genome between ice, marine, and terrestrial environments and possible microbial genome exchanges between solar system planets.
This special volume is indeed an excellent summary of our present knowledge of polar microbiology. The extensive and comprehensive knowledge of polar microbiology provided by this book will help all scientists who are interested in the biology, ecology, physiology, and molecular biology of the polar environment but, further, could be useful also for the wider public. The volume is highly recommended to anyone concerned with these fields.
The Quarterly Review of Biology
Volume 89, Number 1
Reviewer: Josef Elster, Ecosystem Biology and Centre for Polar Ecology, University of South Bohemia, Cˇ eske´ Budeˇjovice, Czech Republic
Review Date: March 2014
Antarctic Science
The editors entitle the preface of their book ‘‘An Exciting Era in Polar Microbiology’’. This is a fair statement because of the amount of information available, and the development of techniques. In addition recent concerted efforts to co-ordinate polar research have all reached a stage where the synthesis of the subject can be attempted with the aim of developing understanding from a whole book that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. This book takes a large step in this direction. This is a well presented book the origins of which are in the 2008 International Polar and Alpine Microbiology conference held in Banff, Canada. It is not, however, a conference proceedings. The individual chapters have been commissioned to provide an overview of the subject and draw together research from the International Polar Year in 2008. The book has 39 contributors with a strong North American presence. The book is divided into four sections: I. Microbial Diversity in Polar Environments, II. Adaptations and Physiology of Cold-Adapted Microorganisms in Polar Environments, III. Ecology and Biogeochemical Cycling of Polar Microbiology Communities, IV. Challenges to Living in Polar and Subpolar Environments, and comprises 14 separate chapters. The transition from consideration of the diversity of different groups, to adaptations and physiology, to ecology and then to future challenges offers a logical and structured approach to the subject which works well, presumably because the individual authors properly understood their mission and the editors worked hard to ensure good consistency and continuity between the chapters. In addition to leading the reader through the subjects, the individual chapters can stand alone, which is a useful attribute. Polar microbiology is an emerging set of disciplines potentially covering both the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems which offer habitats where biological activity and processes are governed by extremes of water activity, and which also spans the extremes of latitude and altitude. Therefore polar microbiology spans a full range of taxonomic and physiological diversity. This books covers the topics well, although there are inevitably some gaps - for my part, I would have welcomed greater coverage of the protozoa and the algae, but this is a minor observation rather than a major criticism recognizing the fact that information and investigations on these groups are very sparse. The book is well-referenced, covering both the modern literature consistent with many of the authors being current researchers in their respective fields, and the older literature which is becoming increasingly difficult to access. The book is also strengthened by careful indexing. Of course, I have not checked every entry, but the samples I did check were accurate and helpful. This is to the credit of the editors because multi-author books often suffer from weak indexing, but not so in this book. So would I recommend it? I certainly think it has a place in institutional libraries and would be interesting to advanced level undergraduate and specialist postgraduate students and researchers.
Antarctic Science vol 25 (6)
Published by Cambridge University Press
Reviewer: D.W. HOPKINS
Review Date: December 2013
Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education (JMBE)
As a Ph.D.-trained microbial physiologist with experience in microbial ecology, I find learning about microbes that live under some of the harshest conditions on the planet invigorating. Understanding how the structural and physiological adaptations of these microorganisms allow them to live under these harsh conditions provides insight into what life had to endure when our own world was a much more inhospitable place. The new text Polar Microbiology: Life in a Deep Freeze by Robert V. Miller and Lyle G. Whyte (ed) delves into the secrets of those organisms that have adapted to living in environments that are consistently around zero degrees Celsius or lower. I was delighted to see that the overall scope of the material covered in this text does not focus only on the cryosphere environments (ice glaciers, etc.), but on polar terrestrial and marine systems as well.
Unlike the recent Polar Microbiology: The Ecology, Biodiversity and Bioremediation Potential of Microorganisms in Extremely Cold Environments (2010), edited by Bej, Aislabie and Atlas, which is more focused in its scope and meant for a more advanced academic reading audience, the Miller and Whyte Polar Microbiology text is written to be accessible to a more general audience. Each chapter was written by leading scientists in Arctic and Antarctic microbiology who set up their topics with an informative introduction meant for those who have little experience in microbiology, let alone polar microbiology. They then delve into the current research on that topic without being overwhelmingly technical and, finally, they discuss where future research may lead. The bibliographical information provided on the authors’ research is sufficiently detailed with primary literature for the academic reader who has further interest in each chapter’s topics.
I am also pleased with how Miller and Whyte have organized the text. They have divided the topics into four parts, focusing on the different aspects of microbiology. Part I addresses microbial diversity in polar environments, looking not only at bacteria and archaea, but eukaryotic and bacteriophage diversity as well. Part II addresses structural and physiological adaptations to the cold, while Part III looks at the importance of these modifications and how they play a role in the ecology of their native habitats. Part IV addresses the challenges these microbes face while living in the current, rapidly changing polar environments of our planet. This part also explores the lower limits of microbial life and its implications for potential life on other planets.
Overall, I found Polar Microbiology an enjoyable reading experience. It is well written, informative and thought-provoking. While it is a bit too general to be used as a text for a college-level course, it is a solid resource for those interested in learning more about life at the extremes. For the microbiologist, it is an excellent summary of our current knowledge of the diversity, adaptations, ecology, and challenges of the microbes thriving in the coldest zones of our planet. I hope that, as the authors continue to answer the scientific questions posed in their chapters, a new edition will be organized to highlight these advances in the future.
JMBE, 284 Volume 14, Number 2
Reviewer: Michael R. Leonardo, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA
Review Date: December 2013
Polar microbiology (i.e., the investigation of microbes inhabiting the Arctic and Antarctic regions in the world) is a fascinating and fast-growing branch of microbiology. Scientists believe that the study of “Life in a Deep Freeze” can provide important information about the ecosystems of psychrophilic (cold-loving) microorganisms and lead to the identifıcation of unique cold-adapted biomolecules (e.g., enzymes) useful in biotechnological applications. Furthermore, since astrobiologists are increasingly searching for life on other cold and icy places in the solar system (e.g., Mars), knowledge about psychrophilic microbes on Earth can be useful for comparison. Also, research about polar microbes may provide insights into the fundamental characteristics of life on our planet. Another reason to study psychrophilic microorganisms is the fact that they are most likely to be the most affected by climatic changes on Earth, in particular global warming and ozone depletion. To sum it up, there are many reasons why polar microbiology is an important area of contemporary science research.
Miller and Whyte assembled a large group of leading scientists in polar microbiology who describe ideas, research, and future directions. The book contains four major sections with a total of 14 chapters. Many chapters are illustrated by tables, schematics, diagrams, and black-and-white photographs. There is also a set of 11 color plates organized by chapters and presented near the end of the book. The table of contents and the eight page index are functional, enabling readers to quickly access specifıc areas of interest.
The fırst section is entitled “Microbial Diversity in Polar Environments.” The authors describe the four major groups of microbial inhabitants found in polar and subpolar regions: bacteria (Chapter 1), archaea (Chapter 2), viruses (Chapter 3), and fungi (Chapter 4). They discuss polar microbial habitats, such as sea ice, polar coastal waters and inland lakes, polar tundra soils and rock, permafrost at different latitudes, and alpine sites in the Arctic Circle.
Section 2 covers the adaptations and physiology of cold-adapted microorganisms. The authors of Chapter 5 describe the general characteristics of psychrophilic microbes and emphasize that polar microbes face many biochemical and physiological challenges, such as reduced enzyme activity, protein denaturation and misfolding, and decreased membrane fluidity and transport effıciency. Chapter 6 provides information about the genomic and expression analyses of psychrophilic microorganisms, and Chapter 7 is about the metagenomic approaches to decipher polar ecosystems. The authors of the eighth chapter turn their attention to uses of cold-adapted microbes in biotechnology. They discuss uses of cold-active biomolecules, for example, in molecular biology, pharmaceuticals/cosmetics, food and textile industries, and organic syntheses. The authors point out that the use of psychrophiles in biotechnology appears to be larger than that of thermophiles (i.e., “heat-loving” microorganisms) because the former have greater biodiversity and the colder temperature range offers broader fıelds of applications.
The third section is entitled “Ecology and Biogeochemical Cycling of Polar Microbiology Communities.” Chapter 9 addresses microbial carbon turnover in arctic terrestrial ecosystems, especially in permafrost. The authors discuss carbon pools and fluxes, and freeze-thaw stresses and their influence on microbial activity. The tenth chapter characterizes polar marine systems with an emphasis on diversity and vertical distribution of pelagic (open-ocean) microbes and their influences on biogeochemistry and (upper) food webs. Chapter 11 discusses microbial life in cryospheric polar environments, which means in glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice, and ice shelves.
Section 4 reviews the challenges microbes face when living in polar and subpolar environments. More specifıcally, Chapter 12 discusses the low temperature limits of microbial growth and metabolisms, and Chapter 13 the effects of climate change and ozone depletion on life at the poles. Chapter 14 is about the search for “Life in Ice on Other Worlds.” The authors look at Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and Titan, as well as comets, and other small, icy solar system bodies.
In conclusion, I consider Polar Microbiology an excellent book useful on many levels and for scientists with various educational backgrounds. For example, this book is suitable as a comprehensive resource for geomicrobiologists, biotechnologists, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, and even astrobiologists. It is also useful as a textbook for students interested in extremophilic microorganisms. Finally, I believe that even those only remotely connected with the fıeld of polar microbiology will fınd something of interest to read and learn about in this book.
Microbe Magazine
Reviewer: Christian T. K.-H. Stadtländer St. Paul, Minn.
Review Date: January 2013
This book is derived from the 4th Polar and Alpine Microbiology conference in Banff (2008), one of a series of meetings that began in 2004 in Finland and have grown steadily in popularity. As a result of broad representation of the community, this is a well-balanced and up-to-date presentation of current thinking in the field. Of particular interest are sections on genome and expression analysis, Antarctic metagenomic studies, subglacial environments and cold-active biomolecules in biotechnology. The layout follows a logical progression from taxonomic diversity, through molecular adaptations to ecology and then future challenges. It is a good reference source and contains many useful and informative tables, such as summaries of primers used, reports of sub-zero metabolic activity, relevant genomes sequenced, molecular adaptations and biodiversity studies. The reference lists cite work from most, if not all, of those present at the meeting and could be said to present an introduction to an exciting era in polar microbiology.
Society for General Microbiology: Microbiology Today
Reviewer: David Pearce, British Antarctic Survey
Review Date: Feb 2012
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