Scientists testing equipment that might be used on Mars someday recently drilled into rock in Spain they thought was sterile, and got a big surprise. Not only did they find life, they also found the environment inside the tock had been altered by the life to make it more hospitable to life.
They reasoned microbes colonized the niche environment in the rock first. Heat given off by the microbes, while extremely little, was enough to make the environment more hospitable for other life forms. Those, in rurn, also shaped their tiny homes through interaction with the environment. Presumably, at least before the human intervention, a relatively stable ecology had been established.
The realization of how life can operate to transform seemingly inhospitable places for its own ends clearly influences how we will pursue looking for life on other worlds. First up on that hit parade will be Mars. Scientists generally agree that Mars had warmer periods in the past. If life ever got started there, it might yet hold on in such niche environments, created by life, for life.
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