Abstract
Concentrated salt solutions like salt or soda lakes, coastal lagoons or man-made salterns, inhabited by only a few forms of higher life, are dominated by prokaryotic microorganisms. Global salt deposits show that evaporation of marine salt water and the development of hypersaline habitats is an ongoing process for millions of years and providing ample time for the evolution of specialized halophilic Bacteria and Archaea. Halophiles, which require more than 0.5 M NaCl for optimal growth [1], have developed two different basic mechanisms of osmoregulatory solute accumulation to cope with ionic strength and the considerable water stress. These mechanisms allow halophiles to proliferate in saturated salt solutions and to survive entrapment in salt rock. The latter was proven by the isolation of viable halophilic Archaea from several subsurface salt deposits of Permo-Triassic age. If halophilic prokaryotes on Earth can remain in viable states for long periods of time, then it is reasonable to consider, under similar extraterrestrial environments, the existence of extraterrestrial organisms. This becomes all the more plausible, considering that halite has been found in several extraterrestrial materials. Here we consider the different mechanisms of osmoadaptation, the environment of halophiles, especially of subterranean halophilic isolates, and the relevance of microbial survival in high saline environments to astrobiology.
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Kunte, H.J., Trüper, H.G., Stan-Lotter, H. (2002). Halophilic Microorganisms. In: Horneck, G., Baumstark-Khan, C. (eds) Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59381-9_13
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