This repository contains the (still very early) draft of the open textbook Microbiology of Extreme Environments. The book is designed for non microbiology majors to provide an extensive overview of the main topics in the microibiology of our plkanet with a special focus on extreme environments. The content of this book comes from the master course "Microbiology of Extreme Enviornments" that I teach at the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) as parte of the Master Degree program "Biology of Extreme Environments". The book will eventually be a free online resource, a downloadable ebook (both in PDF and EPUB format) and a printed-on-demand soft cover book.
The need for the book comes from the lack of cohesive material on the subject that was explaining concept in a weay suited for an interfdisciplianry student base such as the one we have right now in our master program. Additionally, I wanted a book that was actiing as an introductory read pointing to relevant (and often more comprehensive) other resouces using an extended bibliography.
While I am listed as primary author of the book, my team at the Giovannelli Lab has (and still is) contributed significantly to the content of the book, and their names are listed as contributing authors on the contribution page of the book. The book has been designed to be a collaborative effert with my colleagues in the future, and I expect as soon as we are in v1.0 or above to open up pull requests to integrate new topics and chapters. For now any error, mistake and or suggestion can be submitted as an issues here on GitHub.
The book is released under Creative Commons licence CC-SA-NC 4.0. If you have copyright claims for any of the material on the book please open an issue or contact me directly. I am not hard to find online.
For more information about the research and activity of my group please visit www.donatogiovannelli.com or www.coevolve.eu.
-
MICROBIOLOGY BASICS
- A brief history of (environmental) microbiology
- The microbial cell
- Viruses
- Microbial genetics: genes and genomes
- Microbial metabolism: the basics
- Microbial evolution
- Microbial ecology
- Studing microbial diversity: an overview
-
MICROBIAL METABOLISM
- Microbial energetic metabolism 101
- Themodynamic and kinetic
- Photorophy: energy from the Sun
- Chemolithotrophy: energy from the Earth
- Carbon fixation: making biomass
- Chemoheterotrophy: energy from others
-
MICROBIAL DIVERSITY
- Extremophiles and Life's extremes
- Polyextremophiles: the norm rather than the exception
- Psychrophiles
- Thermophiles and hyperthermophiles
- Acidophiles
- Alkaliphiles
- Halophiles
- Piezophiles
- Xerophiles
- Other adaptations: metals, hydrocarbons, radiation, etc...
-
EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS
- Extreme environments on our planet
- Oceans
- Marine sediments
- Deep-sea hydrothemal vents
- Cold seeps and mud volcanoes
- Oxygen minimum zones
- Deep hypersaline anoxic basins
- Whale falls and other massive organic falls
- Shallow water hydrothermal vents
- Marine polar regions
- Soils
- Hot springs and geothermal environments
- Serpentiniziong environments
- Subsurface ecosystems: oceanic and continental
- Alkaline and soda lakes
- Continental polar regions
- Ice and snow
- Atmosphere and aerosols
-
A PLANETARY VIEW
- Biogeochemical cycles
- Coevolution of Geosphere and Biosphere
- Extremophiles contributions to society
- Life beyond Earh: Astrobiology
- Future research directions
IN DEPTH BOXES
Box 1. Ethics: sampling and patenting diveristy Box 2.
The original repository to start this book project was forked from Alessandro Cucci [email protected] and released under MIT License.