Although the Arctic and Antarctic regions are at opposite ends of the earth, they have a similar diversity of bacteria and other microscopic life. These are the findings of an international team of researchers headed by the University of Tübingen, the EMBL Heidelberg and the University of Konstanz. In their study, the team collated data from numerous studies and locations in order to make a direct comparison of the microbial diversity in these two distant regions for the first time. Their results have been published in the open access journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.