Picrophilus torridus is a species of
Archaea
Archaea ( ) is a Domain (biology), domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its Prokaryote, prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even thou ...
described in 1996.
''Picrophilus torridus'' was found in soil near a
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...
in
Hokkaido
is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates HokkaidÅ fr ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. The
pH of the soil was less than 0.5.
''P. torridus'' also has one of the smallest genomes found among organisms that are free-living and are non-parasitic and a high coding density, meaning that the majority of its genes are coding regions and provide instructions for building proteins. The current research suggests the two hostile conditions (high temperatures and low pH) favored by ''P. torridus'' have exerted selective pressure towards having a small and compact genome, which is less likely to be damaged by the harsh environment.
References
Further reading
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External links
Type strain of ''Picrophilus torridus'' at Bac''Dive'' - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase
{{Taxonbar, from=Q14330899
Archaea described in 1996
Euryarchaeota