PULLMAN – A WSU biologist and his collaborator ask just how harsh an animal extremophile might prefer their environment in a paper out today in the journal “Nature Communications.”
In recent decades, scientists have been intrigued by extremophiles microbes and animals capable of living in environments of seemingly unbearable heat, pressure and acidity.
Raymond Lee, an associate professor in the WSU School of Biological Sciences, and lead author Amanda Bates of New Zealand’s University of Otago tested inch-long sulfide worms found on thermal vents a mile below the ocean surface on the Juan de Fuca ridge off British Columbia. They placed the worms in aquariums with hot and not-so-hot sections and found that the worms made a point of going to the cooler areas, even if they could handle temperatures of up to 55 degrees Celsius, or 131 degrees Fahrenheit.
“The surprising finding is they are very conservative,” said Lee, who explored the vents using the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution research submarine Alvin on a National Science Foundation grant. “They have a high thermal tolerance, but they don’t prefer to be near that high thermal tolerance. That tolerance is more a safety mechanism.”
The finding rebuts speculation that surfaced in the mid 1990s that these types of worms live between 60 and 80 C, or 140 to 176 F. In separate experiments, Lee and Bates found none of the worms could survive above 60 C.
Lee said the work gives some insight into how animals work and the more limited environmental extremes that multicellular organisms can handle.