Eukaryotic Community Structure from Río Tinto (SW, Spain), a Highly Acidic River

Abstract

A major question in microbial ecology is to identify the limits of life for growth and survival, and to understand the molecular mechanisms that define these limits. Our ongoing exploration of the Earth has led to continued discoveries of life in environments that have been previously considered uninhabitable. Thus, interest in the biodiversity and ecology of extreme environments has grown in recent years for several reasons: some of these are scientific and related to the idea that extreme environments are believed to reflect early Earth conditions; conditions that persisted for most of the time that life has been on the Earth and to which prokaryotes originally evolved and adapted (Schopf and Walter, 1982). Other reasons are more commercial, such as the use of the metabolic properties of some microorganisms for metal extraction.