High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Antarctica is one of the most physically and chemically extreme terrestrial environments to be inhabited by microorganisms. Although most of the continent is covered by glacial ice sheets, ice-free areas comprising approximately 0.4% of the continental land mass are discontinuously distributed around the coastal margins. The McMurdo Dry Valleys region of Antarctica is a polar desert characterized by extremely low annual precipitation (<100 mm) and an absence of vascular plants and verterbrates; microbial activity dominates biological functioning. Mean summer high and winter low temperatures in the dry valleys are -5 and -30°C. Because precipitation is both infrequent and low, seasonal water availability in hydrologically-connected soils make areas adjacent to water bodies more hospitable relative to dry upland soils.

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