A wide array of microorganisms, including many novel, phylogenetically deeply rooted taxa,
survive and thrive in extreme environments. These unique and reduced-complexity …

Compared to bacteria, our knowledge of archaeal biology is limited. Historically,
microbiologists have mostly relied on culturing and single-gene diversity surveys to …

The accrual of genomic data from both cultured and uncultured microorganisms provides
new opportunities to develop systematic taxonomies based on evolutionary relationships …

The past decade has revealed the diversity and ubiquity of archaea in nature, with a growing
number of studies highlighting their importance in ecology, biotechnology and even human …

Woese and Fox's 1977 paper on the discovery of the Archaea triggered a revolution in the
field of evolutionary biology by showing that life was divided into not only prokaryotes and …

Background Archaea represent a significant fraction of Earth's biodiversity, yet they remain
much less well understood than Bacteria. Gene surveys, a few metagenomic studies, and …

BACKGROUND Archaea have been recognized as a major domain of life besides Bacteria
and Eukarya for about 40 years. Much of the pioneering research on archaeal organisms …

The discovery of the Archaea and the proposal of the three-domains 'universal'tree, based
on ribosomal RNA and core genes mainly involved in protein translation, catalysed new …

Archaea constitute a considerable fraction of the microbial biomass on Earth. Like Bacteria
they have evolved a variety of energy metabolisms using organic and/or inorganic electron …

The acquisition of cellular carbon from inorganic carbon is a prerequisite for life and marked
the transition from the inorganic to the organic world. Recent theories of the origins of life …