In Antarctica polar conditions of real cold, desiccation and salinity extremes lie away from the sea edge. Here, where there is sufficient moisture for life to be found at all it is invariably dominated by cyanobacteria, sometimes in a profusion unmatched elsewhere in the world. Now that much of the descriptive ecology and physiology is completed where should ecology be going? There are two possibilities: 1) an ecosystem approach to the functioning of Antarctic inland areas; 2) a molecular approach to the genetic controls on survival in cold, saline and desiccated conditions.