It has been found that there is an abundance of archaea in soil, sea floor and sediment. What are the ecological functions that archaea are playing in these ecosystems? Are they doing the same work as bacteria doing? Are they important to maintain the balance of biogeochemical processes?
Wiki has a bit on the general activitiees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea#Ecology
Remembering from my Microbial Ecology class, I think they can do any thing a bacteria can do, but in extreme conditions.
I would say they are important to the balance of sulfur and methane .
another link with bonus references at the bottom: http://nodens.ceab.csic.es/ecogenomics/current-projects/diversity-and-biogeochemical-role-of-archaea-in-temperate-aquatic-ecosy.html
Good luck
Re- Bryan's comment: Archaea do function in extreme environments. However, in the last decade we have discovered that they are pretty much everywhere where bacteria are, in addition to extreme environments. In some cases the archaea contribute just as much to ecological function as do bacteria (for example, ammonia oxidation).
The most significant role that the procaryotes (eubacteria and archaea) play in the ecosystem is that they recycle the essential elements and regulate the bigeochemical processes.
In mesophilic environment, a large group of archaea are ammonia oxidisers..
Dear Daniel
Archaea are ubiquitous in mesophilic environments and they represent one of the three domains of life. You should, therefore, expect that can find all major metabolic pathways among members of this domain.
The well-known groups are the methanogens and ammonia oxidisers. Archaea are also involved in anaerobic methane oxidation. There is also a growing body of evidence that some of the uncultured archaeal groups are involved in the degradation of proteinaceous material (Lloyd et al. 2013 Nature) or assimilate utilise acetate (e.g. miscellaneous crenarchaeota, Webster et al. 2010 FEMS Microbiol Ecol).
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