An extremotroph (from Latin extremus meaning "extreme" and Greek troph (τροφ) meaning "food") is an organism that feeds on matter that is not typically considered to be food to most life on Earth. "These anthropocentric definitions that we make of extremophily and extremotrophy focus on a single environmental extreme but many extremophiles may fall into multiple categories, for example, organisms living inside hot rocks deep under the Earth's surface."
Dec 1 2010Examples
- Pestalotiopsis microspora: plastic eater
- Halomonas titanicae: metal eater 2
- Geotrichum candidum: compact disk eater 3
- Aspergillus fumigatus: printed circuit board eater 4
- Deinococcus radiodurans: radioactive waste eater
- Actinobacteria from arid and desert habitats 5
- Cold-tolerant cyanobacteria found in polar ice shelves 6
Industrial uses
Extremotrophs are used as bioremediation and biodegradation agents.
See also
References
Horikoshi, Koki (2010) Extremophiles Handbook, pg. 5 ↩
New Bacteria Found on Titanic; Eats Metal https://web.archive.org/web/20101212223033/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101210-new-species-bacteria-metal-titanic-wreck-science/ ↩
Fungus eats CD : Nature News http://www.nature.com/news/2001/010627/full/news010628-11.html ↩
Kirksey, Kirk (2005) Computer Factoids: Tales from the High-Tech Underbelly, pg. 74 ↩
Wink, Joachim; Mohammadipanah, Fatemeh (2016). "Actinobacteria from Arid and Desert Habitats: Diversity and Biological Activity". Frontiers in Microbiology. 6: 1541. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2015.01541. ISSN 1664-302X. PMC 4729944. PMID 26858692. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729944 ↩
Mueller, Derek; Vincent, Warwick; Bonilla, Sylvia; Laurion, Isabelle (1 June 2005). "Extremotrophs, extremophiles and broadband pigmentation strategies in a high arctic ice shelf ecosystem". Microbiology Ecology. 53 (1): 73–87. Bibcode:2005FEMME..53...73M. doi:10.1016/j.femsec.2004.11.001. PMID 16329931. https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.femsec.2004.11.001 ↩