ArticlePloS one2013
Thermal limit for metazoan life in question: in vivo heat tolerance of the Pompeii worm.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 95 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Fieldwork on animals living in extreme conditions as a source of biomedical innovation.Science in One Health · 2025Review
- Yeti claws: Cheliped sexual dimorphism and symmetry in deep-sea yeti crabs (Kiwaidae).PloS one · 2025Article
- Evolutionary history of the p53 family DNA-binding domain: insights from an Alvinella pompejana homolog.Cell death & disease · 2022Article
- Balanced Polymorphism at theGenes · 2022Article
- Do Hydrothermal Shrimp Smell Vents?Insects · 2021Article
- Fructose metabolism as a common evolutionary pathway of survival associated with climate change, food shortage and droughts.Journal of internal medicine · 2020Review
- Assessing a species thermal tolerance through a multiparameter approach: the case study of the deep-sea hydrothermal vent shrimp Rimicaris exoculata.Cell stress & chaperones · 2019Article
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- Pressure-Retaining Sampler and High-Pressure Systems to Study Deep-Sea Microbes UnderFrontiers in microbiology · 2019Article
- High rates of apoptosis visualized in the symbiont-bearing gills of deep-sea Bathymodiolus mussels.PloS one · 2019Article
- Antagonistic evolution of an antibiotic and its molecular chaperone: how to maintain a vital ectosymbiosis in a highly fluctuating habitat.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Proteome Evolution of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Alvinellid Polychaetes Supports the Ancestry of Thermophily and Subsequent Adaptation to Cold in Some Lineages.Genome biology and evolution · 2017Article
- Population subdivision of hydrothermal vent polychaete Alvinella pompejana across equatorial and Easter Microplate boundaries.BMC evolutionary biology · 2016Article
- Article
- An Individual-Based Diploid Model Predicts Limited Conditions Under Which Stochastic Gene Expression Becomes Advantageous.Frontiers in genetics · 2015Article
- Sensing deep extreme environments: the receptor cell types, brain centers, and multi-layer neural packaging of hydrothermal vent endemic worms.Frontiers in zoology · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The thermal limit for metazoan life, expected to be around 50°C, has been debated since the discovery of the Pompeii worm Alvinella pompejana, which colonizes black smoker chimney walls at deep-sea vents. While indirect evidence predicts body temperatures lower than 50°C, repeated in situ temperature measurements depict an animal thriving at temperatures of 60°C and more. This controversy was to remain as long as this species escaped in vivo investigations, due to irremediable mortalities upon non-isobaric sampling. Here we report from the first heat-exposure experiments with live A. pompejana, following isobaric sampling and subsequent transfer in a laboratory pressurized aquarium. A prolonged (2 hours) exposure in the 50-55°C range was lethal, inducing severe tissue damages, cell mortalities and triggering a heat stress response, therefore showing that Alvinella's upper thermal limit clearly is below 55°C. A comparison with hsp70 stress gene expressions of individuals analysed directly after sampling in situ confirms that Alvinella pompejana does not experience long-term exposures to temperature above 50°C in its natural environment. The thermal optimum is nevertheless beyond 42°C, which confirms that the Pompeii worm ranks among the most thermotolerant metazoans.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.