Study
Life in extreme environments
Rothschild, Lynn J.; Mancinelli, Rocco L.
Nature, 2001
Reviews the known limits of life across temperature, pressure, pH, salinity, radiation and desiccation, and the organisms found at each extreme.
- Studied in
- Bacteria, Archaea, Eukaryota
- Sample size
- review across extreme habitats
The recorded limits of life are set overwhelmingly by microbes rather than by animals, and most extremophiles require their conditions rather than merely tolerating them — an acidophile grown at neutral pH dies.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Extreme is a description relative to human conditions, not a property of the environment as the organism experiences it.
How NatureHQ reads it
The record behind a distinction NatureHQ keeps: an extremophile is not a tough organism enduring a hostile place. It is an organism for which that place is home, and which our conditions would kill. Almost all the records in this subject belong to microbes and not to animals.
- A short review of a very large area, and the recorded limits have been extended since.
- Culturing bias means the known extremophiles are those that grow in a laboratory.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Extremophiles
An extremophile is not a tough organism enduring a hostile place. It needs those conditions: an acid-loving microbe put in neutral water dies. And nearly every record in this subject belongs to a microbe, not an animal.
Extremophiles
Almost every record for what life can withstand belongs to a microbe. The reason is architectural: an animal is many specialised tissues that all have to keep working, and it dies when the first one fails.
Published by: Nature PortfolioPublished in a Nature Portfolio journal.
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.