Table of Contents

PART 1: OPENING CHAPTERS.- Introduction.- Foreword.- Preface.- List of Authors and Their Addresses.- PART 2: GENERAL ASPECTS.- Polyextremophiles and the Constraints for Terrestrial Habitability.- Life on the Edge and Astrobiology: Who Is Who in the Polyextremophiles World.- The Dynamic Genomes of Acidophiles.- PART 3: HALOPHILES.- Two Centuries of Microbiological Research in the Wadi Natrun, Egypt: A Model System for the Study of the Ecology, Physiology, and Taxonomy of Haloalkaliphilic Microorganisms.- Adaptation in Haloalkaliphiles and Natronophilic Bacteria.- A Random Biogeochemical Walk into Three Soda Lakes of the Western USA: With an Introduction to a Few of their Microbial Denizens.- Halophilic, Acidophilic, and Haloacidophilic Prokaryotes.- Life in Magnesium- and Calcium-Rich Hypersaline Environments: Salt Stress by Chaotropic Ions.- Survival Strategies of Halophilic Oligotrophic and Desiccation Resistant Prokaryotes.- Radiation Resistance in Extremophiles: Fending Off Multiple Attacks.- PART 4: THERMOPHILES.- Thermoalkaliphilic Microbes.- Acido- and Thermophilic Microorganisms, Their Features and Identification of Novel Enzymes or Pathways.- Microbial Diversity in Acidic High Temperature Steam Vents.- PART 5: PSYCHROPHILES.- Left Out in the Cold: Life in Cryoenvironments.- Microbial Diversity and Enzymes in Ikaite Columns; A Cold and Alkaline Environment in Greenland.- Microbial Communities Thriving in Various Ice Ecosystems.- Snow Algae. Adaptation Strategies to Survive on Snow and Ice.- Adaptation of Antarctic Freshwater Green Algae to the Extreme Environments.- PART 6: PRESSURE.- Deep Sub-Surface Oil Reservoirs as Poly-Extreme Habitats for Microbial Life. A Current Review.- Expanding Limits for Life to a New Dimension: Microbial Growth at Hypergravity.- PART 7: OXYGEN RELATIONSHIPS.- Microbial Eukaryotes in Marine Oxygen Minimum Zones.- Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basins as Model Systems for Environmental Selection of Microbial Plankton.-Microbial Eukaryotes in Hypersaline Anoxic Deep Sea Basins.- Life at High Salt and Low Oxygen: How Do the Halobacteriaceae Cope with Low Oxygen Concentrations in their Environment?.- PART 8: SELECTED ORGANISMS.- Niches and Adaptations of Polyextremotolerant Black Fungi.- Polyextremophilic Photoautotrophic Eukaryotic Algae.- Extremophilic Magnetotactic Bacteria.- Multicellular Extremophiles – The Case of the Tardigrades.- PART 9: FINAL COMMENTS.- Polyextremophiles - Summary and Conclusions.- Organism Index.- Subject Index .- Author Index.

Reviews

From the book reviews:“It is a document of the terrestrial ecology of free-living microorganisms. … The utility of the volume is enhanced by its general readability; any undergraduate with a basic understanding of microbiology will benefit from reading it. This accessibility is augmented by the color plates that are used throughout the text. … Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” (P. K. Strother, Choice, Vol. 52 (2), October, 2014)