Article: Investigating Life In Extreme Environments Report Gives Hints On Facts Of Life

Investigating Life In Extreme Environments Report Gives Hints On Facts Of
Life

Science Daily - From the deepest seafloor to the highest mountain, from the
hottest region to the cold Antarctic plateau, environments labelled as
extreme are numerous on Earth and they present a wide variety of features
and characteristics.

Investigating life processes in extreme environments not only can provide
hints on how life first appeared and survived on Earth (as early earth was
an extreme environment) but it can also give indication for the search for
life on other planets.

To examine these issues and other matters the European Science Foundation
(ESF) has published a 58-page report Investigating Life in Extreme
Environments - A European Perspective. Among other issues, the report has
stated how global changes in the recent decades have turned some
environments setting into becoming "extreme" conditions for the normal
ecosystems (e.g. acidification of the oceans). Therefore the understanding
of tolerance/adaptation/non-adaptation to extreme conditions and ecosystem
functioning are able to help predicting the impact of global change on
biodiversity.

This report is resulted from an ESF inter-committee initiative involving the
Marine Board (MB-ESF), the European Polar Board (EPB), the European Space
Science Committee (ESSC), the Life Earth and Environmental Sciences Standing
Committee (LESC), the Standing Committee for Humanities (SCH) and the
European Medical Research Councils (EMRC). This interdisciplinary initiative
considered all types of life forms (from microbes to humans) evolving in a
wide range of extreme environments (from deep sea to acidic rivers, polar
regions or planetary bodies).

A series of recommendations were made from a large-scale interdisciplinary
workshop (128 participants) organised in November 2005 with an additional
workshop organised in March 2006. They have identified interdisciplinary
(listed below) and disciplinary research priorities.

Recommendations:-

Cross-cutting Scientific Recommendations
*) Identify and agree on i) model organisms in different phyla (a group that
has genetic relationship) and for different extreme environments; and ii)
model extreme environments
*) Favour an ecosystem-based multidisciplinary approach when considering
scientific activities in extreme environments.
*) Foster the use of Molecular Structural Biology and Genomics when
considering life processes in extreme environments

Cross-cutting Technology Recommendations
*) Laboratory simulation techniques and facilities (e.g. microcosms) should
be wider developed and made available to the scientific community.
*) Develop of in-situ sampling, measurement and monitoring technologies. The
assessment and use of existing techniques is also recommended.
*) Adopt a common approach (specific to research activities in extreme
environments) on technology requirements, availability and development.

Structuring and Networking the Science community
*) Favorise interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity approaches between
scientific domains and between the technological and scientific spheres.
*) Create as soon as possible an overarching interdisciplinary group of
experts to define the necessary actions to build a critical European mass in
the field of "Investigating Life in Extreme Environments"
*) Improve the information exchange, coordination and networking of the
European community involved in scientific activities in extreme
environments.

The report also includes recommendations specific to i) Microbial life, ii)
Life Strategy of plants, iii) Life Strategy of animals and iv) Human
adaptation. The full version of the report can be found at
http://www.esf.org/fileadmin/be_user/publications/ILEE_Final_Report.pdf

Source: European Science Foundation
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070704144459.htm
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


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