Astrobiology seeks to understand the limits of life and to determine the physiology of organisms in order to better assess the habitability of other worlds. To successfully achieve these goals we require microorganisms from environments on Earth that approximate to extraterrestrial environments in terms of physical and/or chemical conditions. The most challenging of these environments with respect to sample collection, isolation and cultivation of microorganisms are anoxic environments. In this paper, an approach to this challenge was implemented within the European Union's MASE (Mars Analogues for Space Exploration) project. In this review paper, we aim to provide a set of methods for future field work and sampling campaigns. A number of anoxic environment based on characteristics that make them analogous to past and present locations on Mars were selected. They included anoxic sulphur-rich springs (Germany), the salt-rich Boulby Mine (UK), a lake in a basaltic context (Iceland), acidic sediments in the Rio Tinto (Spain), glacier samples (Austria) and permafrost samples (Russia and Canada). Samples were collected under strict anoxic conditions to be used for cultivation and genomic community analysis. Using the samples, a culturing approach was implemented to enrich anaerobic organisms using a defined medium that would allow for organisms to be grown under identical conditions in future physiological comparisons. Anaerobic microorganisms were isolated and deposited with the DSMZ (Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH) culture collection to make them available to other scientists. In MASE, the selected organisms are studied with respect to survival and growth under Mars relevant stresses. They are artificially fossilized and the resulting biosignatures studied and used to investigate the efficacy of life detection instrumentation for planetary missions. Some of the organisms belong to genera with medical and environmental importance such as Yersinia spp., illustrating how astrobiology field research can be used to increase the availability of microbial isolates for applied terrestrial purposes.

We present a spectroscopic and photometric study of the interacting binary and Double Period Variable HD 170582 based on the analysis of the ASAS V-band light curve and our high-resolution spectra mostly obtained with CHIRON spectrograph at the 1.5m CTIO telescope.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2010 in Portland, Oregon, USA, August 1 – August 5, 2010.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2010 in Portland, Oregon, USA, August 1 – August 5, 2010.

Three sediment cores were sampled at Sepetiba bay and four cores at Ribeira bay, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Sedimentation rates were determined applying 210Pb dating. In the Ribeira Bay, the sedimentation rate increases in the direction from sampling point RB1 (0.15 cm y-1), in the inner part of the bay, to 0.34 cm y-1 in the sampling point RB4, close to its entrance. For the Sepetiba Bay, two sedimentation rates were observed: a lower rate of 0.3 cm y-1, for the period before the 60's, and a more recent rate of 0.75 cm y-1. These findings agree with the construction of the Santa Cecília impoundment (1955) that brings water from the Paraíba do Sul Basin into the Guandu River, increasing its flow from the original 20 m3 s-1 to 160 m3 s-1. In order to determine the elemental concentrations, aliquot from the SB1 and RB4 cores were taken, totally dissolved and analyzed by ICP-MS. The hypothesis that Ribeira Bay could constitute a reference database for metal concentrations in the neighboring Sepetiba Bay is valid for several elements as K, Ti, Mn, Zn, Ga, Rb, Sr among others, but it isn't for other elements as V, Cr and Cd. Applying to the mean elemental concentration, of the upper contaminated 45 cm sediment layer, and to the elemental concentration of the deepest analyzed sediment layer a normalization to iron, a double ratio was calculated and it was concluded that the Sepetiba Bay sediments are, particularly, contaminated with Cr, may be, from a leather tanning plant existing in this region and Cd and Zn from the former Ingá Metais.

Parasite community ecology has recently focused on understanding the forces structuring these communities. There are few surveys, however, designed to study the spatial repeatability and predictability of parasite communities at the local scale in one host. The purpose of our study was to address the relationship between infracommunity and component community richness, and to describe spatial variations on the local scale, of helminth parasite communities in an avian host, the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa). We sampled 235 wild partridges from 8 separate localities, with different partridge population densities, in the Ciudad Real and Toledo provinces of central Spain, and we determined their overall and intestinal helminth species. We found that habitat variables (mean temperature and land use) were not significantly associated with any component community. The partridge population abundance index was directly correlated with the prevalence and mean intensity of infection but not with component community species richness. There was a curvilinear relationship between infracommunity and component community species richness, as well as negative interspecific associations, for the helminth species assemblage parasitizing the intestine. A nestedness/anti-nestedness pattern, considered as part of a continuum, was associated with prevalence, mean intensity and partridge population abundance index, but not with component community richness. Increases in the partridge population abundance index and the prevalence and mean intensity of infection were associated with increases in helminth community nestedness. Although negative interactions between helminth species could not be ruled out as forces structuring helminth communities, our results suggest that parasite community structure in the red-legged partridge was primarily determined by the extrinsic influence of parasite habitat heterogeneity and its amplification of the differing probabilities of colonization of parasite species.

Five Chilean crossbred draught horses were used to study variation in work performance and biochemical and physiological parameters whilst working with a mould board plough (36 kg) for 6 h/day. The draught force, distance travelled, work done and the estimated extra energy for work were determined for each horse. The results showed that the horses used only 68·0 (s.e. 1·9)% of the total available working time ploughing a mean area of 3283 (s.e. 168) m2 with a mean depth and width of furrow of 12·6 and 22·3 cm, respectively. Estimated daily energy expenditure by the horses during work was 2·24 (s.e. 0·02) times maintenance requirements. The small changes observed in the physiological variables: heart rate, respiratory rate, packed cell volume, haemoglobin concentration and enzyme activity of creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase and aspartate amino transferase, showed that the horses were exercised under submaximal conditions. However, the significant increase in blood cortisol concentrations showed that horses experienced some degree of stress during ploughing work. The significant increase in blood triglycerides concentration observed after each period of work seems to demonstrate that fat mobilization is an important metabolic pathway as an energy supply for the working muscles during prolonged and low speed draught work.