(2003) Taxonomy of Halophilic Microorganisms: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya.

In:
Halophilic Microorganisms and their Environments. Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme
Habitats and Astrobiology, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48053-0_3
CHAPTER 2

TAXONOMY OF HALOPHILIC MICROORGANISMS:

ARCHAEA, BACTERIA, AND EUCARYA

……
"Is there no other creature on your list?" Little Vishnik asked.
The Archangel looked at his list again, rolling it up from the clouds
below. "None of them seems suitable."
"You'll have to make a new one, then," said Little Vishnik firmly.
The Archangel cheered up. "Why not?"
"It should ask questions we can't answer." Said Little Vishnik.
"Absolutely!" The Archangel keyed this into his computer. "And it
should like salt."
"Very much," Little Vishnik agreed. "But it should be very
small."
The Archangel pushed more keys. "Now it's all arranged."
The two heavenly creatures beamed at each other, well pleased with
the new creature they had designed. They were especially pleased that
it had been programmed into the celestial computer, whose circuits
cannot be altered

("How the first halophilic microorganism was

created" – a tale by Donn Kushner) (from
Kushner, 1991)

2.1. THE PLACE OF THE HALOPHILES WITHIN THE MICROBIAL WORLD

Halophilic microorganisms are found in all three domains of life: Archaea, Bacteria,
and Eucarya (Oren, 1999). In each of these domains we encounter representatives that
can grow up to the highest salt concentrations. In NaCl-saturated environments such as
the Dead Sea and saltern crystallizer ponds we find both halophilic Archaea of the
family Halobacteriaceae and unicellular eukaryotic algae of the genus Dunaliella. The
recently discovered Salinibacter ruber (domain Bacteria) also lives in saltern
crystallizer ponds (Antón et al., 2002), and alkaliphilic anoxygenic photosynthetic
Bacteria of the genus Halorhodospira abound in soda lakes at salt concentrations
exceeding
In this volume a halophilic microorganism is operationally defined as an organism
that shows considerable growth at salt concentrations higher than Figure 2.1
shows the universal tree of life, highlighting those branches that contain halophilic
microorganisms that conform to this definition. The sections below provide taxonomic
and nomenclatural information on the halophiles described to date (updated to January

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