by Rob Edwards
What's the lowest temperature at which microbes can grow? Clearly it is below 0°C and above −273°C, so we have a range. See a review on the topic.
Likewise, what's the hottest temperature for growth?
Pictures Considered #42 by Christoph — It's exactly 150 years since the picture considered in this post was published in the 'General Morphology of Organisms' by Ernst Haeckel (1866). "Phylogeny is the evolutionary history of organisms," explains Uwe Hoßfeld, co-author of a recent paper in 'Nature' that celebrates this anniversary. "Because Haeckel was the first actually to define this term, in..."
by Elio — We sometimes make a sally into the high jinks of metazoans, perhaps to persuade you that we are not prokaryotic chauvinists (not that you thought so, surely). This foray concerns a novel strategy that sheds light on an apparent paradox: many prey, instead of making themselves hard to see, seem to use tactics that...
by Elie & Rachel Diner — For all things alive, from Nobel laureates to microbes, defining one's "sense of self" is crucial for success and survival. This allows every organism to distinguish itself from foreign and potentially harmful agents. But to be of benefit, simply identifying destructive agents is not enough. Identification must ultimately lead to...
by Veronica W. Rowlett — Most bacteria divide quite precisely and their daughter cells are often the same size. The reason for this accuracy is not really known, but it must be important because it is such a frequent phenomenon. This requires good measuring sticks, systems that calculate distance from the ends and restrict the...
The Matryoshka Dolls of Human Pathogens by Jamie Schafer — We're all too familiar with the viruses that can infect us, from the common cold to yellow fever virus to the endogenous retroviruses that make up a chunk of our genome. Many of us are also acquainted with parasites, such as tape worms or Giardia, that like to set up camp…
Symbiosis and Sustainability in Corals by Antonia Darragh — One-on-one relationships are frequent in coral reefs. Most corals house photosynthetic algae, for example, in symbiotic relationships that allow for intimate and cyclic exchange of sustaining compounds in a nutrient-poor environment. The coral benefits from the products of the algae's photosynthesis, such as sugars, while the algae...
As far as I know (and I suspect you know know this too), the highest growth temperature recorded to date is 121 degrees C for Strain 121 — but it has a ridiculously slow growth speed of about one day's doubling time. Personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some life form could handle almost any temperature so long as there was enough pressure to maintain liquid water.
I'd agree with Christopher.
And for always giving me a moment to reflect on our lil bugs...i have tagged this blog on mine for an award.
I'll add my vote to Christopher's; as long as you've got liquid water, at either end of the spectrum, something should be able to eke out a living. Is there some physical limit to how low you can get the freezing temperature of water by adding solutes?
There was a recent PNAS paper describing a method for growing Methanopyrus kandleri at 122° under pressure, so strain 121 has been beaten, but not by much...
Mike,
Many thanks for pointing out the current Olympic champ. The article is at
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18664583
The race is surely on.
Elio
In terms of the lower temperature limits, the eutectic point of water is ‑40C. Several recent studies have looked at metabolics and gene expression as low as ‑15C. There are groups experimenting with bacteria in vitrious ice (ice as a glass) down to ‑187C. In terms of growth rates, we see aerobic heterotrophs doubling every few days in rich media down to ‑6C and every couple weeks in mineral media with a single C‑source.