Vibrational Spectroscopy of Extremophile Microbes

(C. P. Marshall)

Many studies of extremophiles focus principally on prokaryotic organisms, particularly bacteria, and more specifically the cyanobacteria, green non-sulfur bacteria, and green sulfur bacteria. However, several groups of archaea and micro-eukaryotes also thrive in serve environments although their diversity is much less known. Micro-eukaryotes have been present on Earth for at least 2.7 billion years and their role in the generally prokaryote-dominated extreme environments has not been investigated in detail. Therefore, we propose to study archaea and primitive micro-eukaryotes living in extreme physico-chemical conditions on Earth to use as analogues for the exploration of Mars.