No Place Too Cold

@article{LaybournParry2009NoPT,
  title={No Place Too Cold},
  author={Johanna Laybourn‐Parry},
  journal={Science},
  year={2009},
  volume={324},
  pages={1521 - 1522}
}
Simple microbial food webs are found even in the coldest and most remote polar lakes. Even the coldest environments on Earth have enough liquid water to sustain life. The scope for biological productivity in the polar regions is constrained by low temperatures and low annual levels of solar radiation, but free water on or under glaciers or ice sheets nevertheless contains numerous species of mostly microorganisms. These delicate ecosystems are widely regarded as sentinels of climate change… 
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Microbial ecology of Antarctic aquatic systems
TLDR
The factors that shape the biogeography of Antarctic microorganisms are assessed, some of the unusual biogeochemical cycles that they are associated with are reflected and the important roles that viruses have in controlling ecosystem function are discussed.
Establishment of microbial eukaryotic enrichment cultures from a chemically stratified antarctic lake and assessment of carbon fixation potential.
TLDR
A better understanding of protist metabolic versatility in the simple dry valley lake food web will aid in the development of models for the role of protists in the global carbon cycle.
Microbial ecology and biogeochemistry of continental Antarctic soils
TLDR
Nitrogen fixation rates of hypoliths, as assessed through acetylene reduction assays, suggest that these communities are a significant input source for nitrogen into these oligotrophic soils.
Viruses of Polar Aquatic Environments
TLDR
The viral diversity in aquatic polar regions that has been discovered in the last decade is reviewed, most of which has been revealed by advances in genomics-enabled technologies, and the vast extent of the still-to-be explored polar microbial diversity and its “enigmatic virosphere” is reflected.
Extremophiles in Antarctica: life at low temperatures
TLDR
This chapter will explore the different adaptations of extremophiles to life in the extreme cold by taking an illustrated look at the Antarctic environment, as it is by far the coldest environment on Earth.
The under‐ice microbiome of seasonally frozen lakes
TLDR
How under-ice conditions alter lake physics and the ways that this can affect the distribution and metabolism of auto- and heterotrophic microorganisms are highlighted.
Functional Diversity of Microbial Communities in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
TLDR
The high throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria were relatively dominant in hypolithic and soil communities, and these phyla also displayed the greatest functional diversity, suggesting that the metabolic plasticity for these taxa may be an important factor in their role as keystone species in these communities.
Physicochemical and biological dynamics in a coastal Antarctic lake as it transitions from frozen to open water
TLDR
It is demonstrated that temporal changes in physicochemical parameters during the summer months determine community dynamics and mediate changes in microbial species composition.
Protist diversity in a permanently ice-covered Antarctic Lake during the polar night transition
TLDR
The first molecular study to describe the vertical distribution of the eukaryotic community residing in the photic zone of the east lobe (ELB) and west lobe (WLB) of the chemically stratified Lake Bonney is reported, indicating the influence of the unique water chemistry on the biology of the two dry valley watersheds.
Microbial communities of water column of Lake Radok, East Antarctica, dominated by abundant actinobacterium “Candidatus Planktophila limnetica”
The icefree regions of the Antarctic continent(Antarctic oases [1]), have attracted the special attention of researchers from the very first studies, asregions more likely to harbor life. A prominent…
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