Structure and function of hemoglobins from antarctic organisms: the search for correlations with adaptive evolution

For the study of temperature adaptations, Antarctica, more than any other habitat on earth, is indeed a unique natural laboratory. After 15 years of extensive investigations on the molecular basis of cold adaptation in antarctic marine and terrestrial organisms, we are finally able to begin identifying firm guidelines for understanding the interplay among biochemical/ physiological processes of oxygen transport, ecology and adaptive evolution.