Editorial: Thermophilic and halophilic extremophiles in Eurasian environments, volume II
Abstract
The Editorial on the Research Topic Thermophilic and Halophilic Extremophiles in Eurasian Environments-II Saline/hypersaline and geothermal ecosystems are typical extreme environments. Microbial diversity, ecological functions and adaptations in (hyper)saline and thermal ecosystems are receiving extensive attentions, mainly because: 1) they have environmental conditions similar to that of some extreme environments on early Earth or other planets, so they are suitable environments for simulation research on the origin and evolution of life and the exploration of extraterrestrial life; 2) they have relatively low complexity of microbial communities, so they are often employed as model ecosystems to investigate microbially mediated element cycling and biogeochemical processes and their responses to environmental conditions (e.g., salinity, temperature); and 3) they are rich in biological dark matter, so they are employed to obtain new microbial resources and discover new metabolic pathways.The saline/hypersaline and geothermal ecosystems in Eurasia have diverse and unique geological and physiochemical characteristics. As the result of the employment of multi-omics technologies, a series of new discoveries have been made in microbial diversity, ecological functions and biogeochemistry of these environments. In 2019, we successfully organized and published one Research Topic consisting of 11 original research articles (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/5339/thermophilic-andhalophilic-extremophiles-in-eurasian-environments) with the same title as the present one, which received a good reading feedback (7000 downloads and 37000 views) in the year after its publication. Therefore, Chief Editor Andreas Teske invited us to relaunch the Research Topic. We gladly accepted his invitation to organize this Research Topic.In the current Research Topic, we accepted and published eight research articles, including five and three articles on saline/hypersaline and geothermal ecosystems, respectively. We are grateful to all authors who contributed to this research topic. We are also grateful to all reviewers, handling editors and editorial staff who contributed during the editing and article production processes. Among the articles related to studies on saline/hypersaline ecosystems, Singh et al. (2023) disclosed that elevated inorganic carbon and salinity enhances photosynthesis and ATP synthesis in picoalga Picocystis salinarum as revealed by label free quantitative proteomics; Liu et al. (2022b) found that the diversity of carbohydrateactive enzymes (CAZy) and sulfur cycling genes decreased with increasing salinity, whereas nitrogen cycling gene diversity showed an opposite trend. Relative abundances of many CAZy, nitrogen and sulfur cycling gene categories decreased with increasing salinity, whereas some CAZy, nitrogen and sulfur gene categories showed an increasing trend. The compositions of CAZy, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling genes in the studied lake sediments were significantly (P < 0.05) affected by environmental factors such as salinity, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus, with salinity having the greatest influence. We are delighted to publish this research topic in Frontiers in Microbiology. We hope that this research topic will be interesting and useful to the readers of the journal, and broaden the knowledge of thermophilic and halophilic extremophiles in Eurasian Environments. The findings presented in this research topic are exciting, but still limited. In the future, the application of innovative research technologies and intensive and in-depth international collaboration will undoubtedly unveil more exciting aspects of thermophilic and halophilic extremophiles in Eurasian environments.AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS HJ organized this topic and wrote the editorial article. WL, NKB and DE are co-editors of the topic and discussed the writing.