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Left Out in the Cold: Life in Cryoenvironments

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Polyextremophiles

Part of the book series: Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology ((COLE,volume 27))

Abstract

Cryoenvironments are generally defined as environments that exist continuously and predominately at subzero temperatures. They exist primarily in polar and alpine regions and consist of large-scale geomorphological features such as permafrost, glaciers, ice caps, and sea ice. Cryoenvironments also include relatively rare subzero habitats such as cold lakes and ponds, which can be permanently ice covered, and subzero saline springs, which flow throughout the year, warmed by geothermal gradients, and maintained liquid due to their high salinity (Andersen et al., 2002; Doyle et al., 2012). The primary constraint to life in cryoenvironments is the availability of liquid water; life needs liquid water to survive, mediate biochemical reactions, provide transport of molecules, and act as a solvent. It is not necessarily subzero temperatures that constrain life in cryoenvironments but rather the conditions that are typically found associated with subzero temperatures, which include freezing, desiccation, or high osmolarity. Microorganisms in subzero environments must, however, be able to cope with the thermodynamic effects of low temperatures including lower reaction rates, increased molecule stability, and conformational changes of proteins (Bakermans, 2008). Because the presence of liquid water in cryoenvironments is often facilitated through the freezing-point depression properties of various solutes, microorganisms must also be able to tolerate osmotic stress, usually in the form of high salinity. Despite these harsh environmental conditions, there is a recent and growing body of evidence that cryophilic microorganisms (those able to reproduce at <0 °C) exist and are metabolically active in these cryoenvironments at ambient temperatures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, 21, 111 Lakeshore Rd., Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, H9X 3V9, QC, Canada

    Jacqueline Goordial, Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon, Chih-Ying Lay & Lyle Whyte

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  1. Jacqueline Goordial
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  2. Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon
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  3. Chih-Ying Lay
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  4. Lyle Whyte
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Correspondence to Jacqueline Goordial .

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  1. The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Joseph Seckbach

  2. Dept. of Plant and Env. Sciences, Institute of Life Sciences The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Aharon Oren

  3. Dept. Mikrobiology, Universität Salzburg FB Molekulare Biologie, Salzburg, Austria

    Helga Stan-Lotter

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Goordial, J., Lamarche-Gagnon, G., Lay, CY., Whyte, L. (2013). Left Out in the Cold: Life in Cryoenvironments. In: Seckbach, J., Oren, A., Stan-Lotter, H. (eds) Polyextremophiles. Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology, vol 27. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6488-0_14

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