Summary The endospore‐forming bacteria have persisted on earth perhaps 3Ga, leveraging the flexibility of their distinctive lifestyle to adapt to a remarkably wide range of environments. This process of adaptation can be investigated through the simple but powerful technique of laboratory evolution. Evolved strains can be analyzed by whole genome sequencing and an array of omics technologies. The intensively studied, genetical...

Although the aim of conservation planning is the persistence of biodiversity, current methods trade‐off ecological realism at a species level in favour of including multiple species and landscape features. For conservation planning to be relevant, the impact of landscape configuration on population processes and the viability of species needs to be considered. We present a novel method for selecting reserve systems that maximi...

Summary Microbial characterization of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and the Kennedy Space Center Spacecraft Assembly and Encapsulation Facility II (SAEF‐II) was carried out by both culture‐based and molecular methods. The most dominant cultivable microbes were species of Bacillus , with comamonads , microbacteria and actinomycetales also represented. Several spore‐forming isolates were resistant to γ‐radiation, UV, H 2 O 2 and d...