Patterns of environmental spatial structure lie at the heart of the most fundamental and
familiar patterns of diversity on Earth. Antarctica contains some of the strongest …

Persistently cold environments constitute one of our world's largest ecosystems, and
microorganisms dominate the biomass and metabolic activity in these extreme …

Recent applications of molecular genetics to edaphic microbial communities of the McMurdo
Dry Valleys and elsewhere have rejected a long-held belief that Antarctic soils contain …

The McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica are a cold hyperarid polar desert that present
extreme challenges to life. Here, we report a culture-independent survey of multidomain …

The occurrence of groundwater in Antarctica, particularly in the ice-free regions and along
the coastal margins is poorly understood. Here we use an airborne transient …

Setting The McMurdo Dry Valleys exist because the Transantarctic Mountains block much of
the flow of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet toward McMurdo Sound (Chinn 1990). In addition, at …

Antarctica, the striking features of the stark landscape include the wide expanses of barren
ground patterned with large hexagonal shapes created by periglacial (freeze-thaw) …

Once thought of as inert, ice has been increasingly recognized as a habitat suitable for life.
The landscape of the MCMurdo Dry Valleys (MCM) of Antarctica is dominated by glaciers …

Unicellular fungi, commonly referred to as yeasts, were found to be components of the
culturable soil fungal population in Taylor Valley, Mt. Discovery, Wright Valley, and two …

Soils in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica are considered to be among the world's most extreme
environments. These soils are old, cold and dry with low contents of organic carbon and …