Iubmb Focused Meeting On Extremophilic Fungi

Nowadays we know that most environments that in the past were considered to be too extreme to be populated by any living form, can harbour life. Initially the prevailing conviction was that only prokaryotic cells, Bacteria and Archaea, are able to sustain the most extreme conditions and that eukaryotic cells, in particular fungi, are too complex to survive under such harsh conditions. In recent decades, however, fungi have been found to be an integral part of extreme microbial communities. Unlike their prokaryotic counterparts most fungi adapt to a wide range of an extreme condition, e.g. from no salt to saturation with salt, from low to high pH. They display a typical fungal strategy in adaptations - extremotolerance or even poly-extremotolerance - rather than extremophily. Extremotolerant fungi can be so adapted to multiple environments that they perceive a broad range of extreme conditions as optimal for their growth. Who are these fungi? Where can we find them? How did they evolve and how do they survive in some of the most extraordinary conditions we find on our planet? Which unique solutions to universal problems of adaptations they have evolved in comparison with prokaryotes? Can we use them in practical applications? Do they adapt to global climate change? Can they give us some astrobiological answers?These are going to be the main questions that will be addressed at the first conference on extremophilic fungi that will bring together many world-renowned experts, young scientists, and students. Hopefully this first-time event will help usher mycology in the next era of extreme mycology and become a traditional event in the years to come.