Nat Rev Microbiol (IF=61) Shu Wensheng/Huang Linan published a review of microbial diversity in extreme environments (worthy of collection)

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A large number of microbes in iNature, including many new, phylogenetic and deep-rooted taxa, survive and multiply in extreme environments
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These unique and less complex ecosystems provide huge opportunities for studying the structure, function and evolution of natural microbial communities
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The marker gene survey has solved the patterns and ecological driving factors of these extremophile combinations, revealing a large number of uncultivated microbial diversity and the advantages of archaea under the most extreme conditions
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New omics research has revealed the relationship between community function and environmental variables, and has been able to discover and characterize major new lineages in the genome, which have significantly expanded microbial diversity and changed the structure of the tree of life
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These efforts have greatly promoted researchers' understanding of microbial diversity, ecology and evolution in the extreme environment of the earth, and promoted the exploration of microbial communities and processes in more complex ecosystems
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On November 8, 2021, Shu Wensheng of South China Normal University and Huang Linan of Sun Yat-sen University published an online review article entitled "Microbial diversity in extreme environments" in Nature Reviews Microbiology (IF=61).
An understanding of the diversity, ecology and evolution of bacteria and archaea in the main extreme environments of the earth
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 Extreme environments, such as terrestrial hot springs and deep-sea hydrothermal vents, glaciers and permafrost, high-salinity habitats, acid mine drainage (AMD) and underground, are widely distributed around the world
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Despite harsh physical and chemical conditions, these habitats provide diverse niches for various microorganisms from all three life domains
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These creatures have evolved different strategies to deal with extreme environmental pressures
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In addition, due to its reduced biological complexity, the overall ease of processing independent molecular analysis of culture, and the close coupling between geochemistry and biological processes, some extreme environments are ideal targets for microbial ecology, evolution, and environmental adaptation research
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Historically, microbiologists have mainly relied on culture-based methods
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Therefore, early ecophysiological research mainly focused on some "model" microorganisms that are relatively easy to separate from various extreme habitats
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Subsequent investigations independent of culture (for example, 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene cloning library analysis) found a large amount of microbial diversity, which is not present in the group of organisms available in pure culture
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In addition, high-throughput marker gene sequencing can analyze microbial diversity more in-depth and more extensively than ever before, and can be used to comprehensively examine the wider distribution patterns of microbes and the factors that shape the large-scale ecological range of these microbes
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Overall, these molecular investigations have greatly expanded our understanding of the microbial diversity in the major extreme environments of the earth, usually revealing relatively low to moderately complex microbial communities and high abundance of a few dominant species with wide geographic distribution
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The development and application of new genome sequencing and computational methods have provided comprehensive insights into the metabolic capabilities and dynamics of communities at different temporal and spatial scales and specific geochemical gradients.
Together, they have greatly expanded our view of the tree of life
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These genomic data provide new perspectives on the metabolic diversity and ecological functions of archaea and bacteria, as well as the evolution of early life and the origin of eukaryotes
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In this review, we summarize the current understanding of the diversity, ecology, and evolution of bacteria and archaea that inhabit the earth’s major extreme environments
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