Highlights•Metagenomics permitted a better knowledge of the microbial diversity of
hypersaline habitats.•Cellular life in hypersaline habitats is dominated by prokaryotes …

NaCl-saturated brines such as saltern crystalliser ponds, inland salt lakes, deep-sea brines
and liquids-of-deliquescence on halite are commonly regarded as a paradigm for the limit of …

Background Archaea share a similar microbial lifestyle with bacteria, and not surprisingly
then, also exist within matrix-enclosed communities known as biofilms. Advances in biofilm …

Extremophilic microbes show a unique metabolism due to the adaptations they display to
deal with extreme environmental parameters characterizing the extreme ecosystems that …

We analyzed the prokaryotic community structure of a saltern pond with 21% total salts
located in Isla Cristina, Huelva, Southwest Spain, close to the Atlantic ocean coast. For this …

The brines of natural salt lakes with total salt concentrations exceeding 30% are often
colored red by dense communities of halophilic microorganisms. Such red brines are found …

Background Cold-adapted archaea have diverse ecological roles in a wide range of low-
temperature environments. Improving our knowledge of the genomic features that enable …

Concurrent osmotic and chaotropic stress make MgCl2‐rich brines extremely inhospitable
environments. Understanding the limits of life in these brines is essential to the search for …

All analyzed haloarachea are polyploid. In addition, haloarchaea contain more than one
type of chromosome, and thus the gene dosage can be regulated independently on different …

Interest and controversy surrounding the evolutionary origins of extremely halophilic
Archaea has increased in recent years, due to the discovery and characterization of the …