The European Science Foundation (ESF) has announced that it will host a session on the challenges of life in extreme environments on March 27 at Planet Under Pressure 2012. The session will look at different aspects of life in extreme environments - from knowledge to sustainable exploitation of new resources under growing pressures. Recognising the pivotal role of extreme environments at planetary level, the ESF-hosted session will also be endorsed by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) through the programme dedicated to land-atmosphere interactions (iLEAPS).
A selection of speakers from across Europe and the US will discuss emerging ideas about sustainable exploitation of novel resources. The presentations will highlight research on biogeochemical cycles to understand the impacts of climate change and the ecosystem responses, and to provide knowledge about adaptation, land use change, and mitigation options.
The ESF-hosted session is a follow-up of the FP7-funded Coordinated Action for Research on Life in Extreme Environments (CAREX) project and strategic roadmap. CAREX, launched last year, is projected as a solid scientific consensus from a community of over 220 international experts studying life in every type of extreme environment. CAREX's identified research priorities include life's response to climate and environmental change, its adaptation methods, understanding biodiversity and interactions within extreme environments, and finding limits of habitability which could inform the search for extraterrestrial life.
The ESF-hosted session will be split into four presentations. Prof. A. Altman, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, will shed light on the desert environments, highlighting plant-specific coping molecular and physiological mechanisms based on chaperone proteins that superintend the general metabolism under harsh environments. Dr. D.S.M. Billet, from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton in the UK, will present an overview of mining in the deep sea and the issues surrounding protection of marine life. Dr. C. Verde, from the Institute of Protein Biochemistry at the National Research Council in Italy, will report on Antarctic bacterial globins and their role in nitric oxide biology, highlighting how this and other findings may be exploited for sustainable exploitation of biological resources in extreme environments. Dr. L.J. Rothschild, from the NASA Ames Research Center in the US, will focus on life in extreme environments from NASA's perspective.
ESF's session is seen as an opportunity for Planet Under Pressure's delegates to gain new perspectives on the latest research into life in extreme environments, to interact with leading scientists in the field, and to gain a real understanding of the pro-active role of CAREX so far, and its vision about future sustainable exploitation of life resources in the extreme environments.
ESF will also be hosting a side meeting, attendance by invitation only, on March 27, on research on life in extreme environments, taking a retrospective look and an outlook at pressures on our planet and global change. The outcome of this side meeting will see the publication of a vision paper on the scientific challenges and societal opportunities offered by research on life in extreme environments, as well as policy implications.
