Terrestrial Biology III V30

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Antarctic Research Series, Volume 30.

A decade has elapsed since the appearance of the last terrestial biology volume of the Antarctic Research Series in 1972. Happily, the paucity of such published material in the Series is no reflection of low productivity on the part of biologists. Rather, the last decade has seen the publication of a number of volumes devoted to Antarctic research. Especially noteworthy is the 1252-page Proceedings of the Third SCAR Symposium on Antarctic Biology (1977). In addition, the 1970's has witnessed an increasing frequency of publications on Antarctic terrestial biological research in top-ranking journals, and 1982 has seen the introduction of the new journal Polar Biology. Interesting research discoveries published recently include the unusual endolithic microbial communities within desert valleys normally too dry and too firgid for support of extensive development of exolithis microbial life; the endemic diatom taxa from the cold, saline waters of dry valley lakes, some of which are physiologically unique in their combined psychrophilic and halophilic nature; and the unique stromatolitic blue-green algal-bacterial mats in lakes of the dry valleys.