Although animals have adapted to many different environments, there is one that trumps them all: the tardigrade. Commonly called water bears and sometimes moss piglets, tardigrades are able to endure many environmental stresses, such as dehydration and extreme temperature changes (Herkewitz). They can even survive in space (Herkewitz)! This essay will prove that the tardigrade is the most resilient animal on earth and give a glimpse into the everyday life of a tardigrade.
Tardigrades have been known to survive in environments that would kill nearly any other organism. One such environment is outer space. Space combines many elements that would individually terminate the life of almost anything; however, an experiment conducted by a team of
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When a tardigrade becomes a tun, it loses 97-99% of its body’s water, and its metabolism slows to 0.01% of its ordinary speed (Herkewitz). Some of its cell contents are replaced with trehalose molecules, a type of sugar (Herkewitz). They also coat themselves with large amounts of glassy molecules produced by proteins unique to tardigrades (Crew). An abnormal amount of antioxidants are produced to defend against reactive oxygen species, dangerous molecules that irradiate particles containing oxygen (Herkewitz). There are four key types of cryptobiosis that tardigrades undergo: anoxybiosis, cryobiosis, anhydrobiosis, and osmobiosis (“Tardigrades!”). The most common form is anhydrobiosis, the type of cryptobiosis tardigrades go through when their body does not have enough water to function as it usually does (“Tardigrades!”). This allows tardigrades to survive long droughts. Of course, droughts are not the only problem water bears face. Tardigrades have been subjected to many tests by scientists, and they took different forms depending on the test. Tardigrades will enter a stage called cryobiosis that lets them survive extreme temperatures (“Tardigrades!”). When there is a lack of oxygen that threatens a tardigrade, it will go into anoxybiosis (“Tardigrades!”). Thanks to this, tardigrades do not need oxygen to survive in outer space. The final cryptobiotic form tardigrades can enter is called osmobiosis (“Tardigrades!”). Osmobiosis is the least studied of all cryptobiotic forms and occurs when there is an increase in the concentration of a solute in the water a tardigrade lives in (“Tardigrades!”). One example of osmobiosis would be if salt was poured into the water in which a tardigrade was
Given these simple characteristics, isopods are of great and easy use for scientific studies. The goal of the first experiment was to determine whether or not isopods prefer a moist environment or a dry environment. This led to the hypothesis that isopods have a preference between wet or dry environments;
Adaptations in terrestrial environments involve the structural and functional qualities of the organism, to achieve the adequate intake of oxygen and other essential substances for the animal to survive, the evolution of more complex anatomical structures were required. Gravity is stronger on land than water, which means terrestrial organisms have to be more structural than aquatic organisms. Also, the balance of gas exchange with water loss is a key feature to survive in land. For example plants, when doing photosynthesis require carbon dioxide and water to produce oxygen, at the end of this process a lot of water is lost and terrestrial plants have to compensate the water being lost and the water taken from soil. Furthermore, the dispersal of gametes by wind or other animals have helped plants reproduce in large amounts and create varieties of species of the same kind. Short-term weather patterns as well as long-term climate conditions based on precipitations, temperature, wind, humidity as well as other factors are survival obstacles that organisms in land have to adapt to live; endothermic organisms have to maintain a constant internal
Daphnia magna also commonly known as water fleas are tiny freshwater crustaceans. They are filter feeders, and can survive in culture by eating algae, bacteria, or yeast. They feed plankton and detritus. There are about 1.5-5mm long. Daphnia Magna have a brood chamber where eggs are located. Daphnia magna are located in freshwater areas throughout northern hemisphere and south Africa.
In the past we have tried to contain these Cane Toads by setting up traps in the dry-seson however many blue tongue lizard got caught in them. They also tried to set up fences around areas that only have 1 or 2 freshwater lakes in them so that the babies cannot walk away from the area. This worked but we cannot simply fence up all the water sources in the top half of Australia. But I think we should create a poison on the cane toads. Because the other thing that eats Cane Toads is Cane Toads; therefore if we create a poisson on them we are able to get rid of many toads. The first step in creating this plan would be to make the poission. Secondly we would give the poison in a syringe to every homeowner in Northern Queensland so that they can
All living things respond to stimuli, including animals. In our experiment, we tested how roly-polies, or pill bugs, respond to two types of material: wet sand and wet dirt. Pill bugs are isopods, a group of 10,000 species living on land and in fresh water and ocean. They are under the phylum Arthropoda, class Crustacea, containing both crabs and shrimp. Pill bugs generally live in dark, moist environments with the decaying matter they eat.
The cane toad, also known as rhinella marina, got its bad reputation soon after being released into the Australian ecosystem in 1935 with the expectation that it would control the destructive cane beetle population. However, instead of controlling pests, the cane toad became a pest of its own. About 3,000 cane toads were released in the sugarcane plantations of north Queensland in 1935. There are now more than a million cane toads and their still expanding over an area of thousands of square kilometres in northeastern Australia. They are large, amphibians with dry, warty skin, and are native to the southern United States, Central America, and tropical South America. Their numbers are controllable in their normal range, but they have boomed
My trip to the La Brea Tar Pits, taught me of the biodiversity that was within California, from the Columbian Mammoths, Shasta Ground Sloth, Dire Wolves, and Sabretooth Cats. The museum emphasized that most of the extinct animals that were on display were extinct due to climate change or hunted by the earliest tribes throughout California and North America. The museum points out that most of these animals were large, but doesn’t show the reason as to why the larger animals went extinct, but the smaller animals survived the extinction. The museum also mentions that night-stalking animals weren’t found in the pits as during the cool temperatures throughout the evening would solidify the asphalt. This extinction was known as the Pleistocene
In this lab, we studied the health and response of a protist community in an environmental change. The objective of this lab was to study and learn about how variables, such as a more acidic environment, impact the community in a habitat. Furthermore, it was also to learn about how diversity is quantified. To test this, we added protist communities to habitats of different pH levels, from 7 to 4, and let them live there for a week. We then studied the results and investigated which protists lived better in which environments. We discovered that at a pH of 7, the neutral pH of spring water, protists were able to live. As the pH was decreased, however, protists began to die off and could not survive in such acidic conditions. We also noticed that the lower the pH, the lower the diversity because fewer types of protists could survive. We can use this information to see how acidic conditions in nature such as those caused by acid rain can affect communities. We now know that an acidic environment can be extremely harmful to a community and so we should be more cautious of acid rain. If acidic conditions are bad for protists, it is quite possible that they are unfavorable for humans as well.
In the article “How a Water Bear survives, Even When It’s Dry” illustrated a way genes with the ability to help living organism adopt and survive harsh environment. Tardigrades a microorganism that able survive in the cold and warmest environment for decent through the process of anhydrobiosis. When this organism approach the frozen or dry state, itself form a ball shape structure. The unique genes of tardigrade allow them to create proteins that known as tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered proteins which can protect and hold the water bear’s cells intact to prevent any damage from happening during the state of desiccation, until it rehydrate itself it will remain this this
Biologists, suited in wetsuits and snorkels, gently lift a large rock underwater before poking a dive light into the crevice. Two small eyes peek out at them, a wide grin and a flattened wrinkled body floating and bobbing with the current. The Eastern Hellbender, ancient giant salamanders that have roamed the Earth for millions of years, living dinosaurs that roam the bottom of non-polluted streams and shallow rivers preying on crawfish and earthworms.
Water bears, scientifically known as tardigrades, are puffy, microscopic creatures. The name “water bear” comes from zoologist J.A.E. Goeze in 1773 because of its strange similarity to bears (Bordenstein 2017). All tardigrades are noted as aquatic because they require a film of water to exchange gas (Lindahl and Balser 1999). Tardigrades have been found everywhere, therefore, they need to adapt to every kind of environment. Tardigrades can survive below freezing temperatures as well as above boiling temperatures.
For many years scientists have thought that Tardigrades were extraterrestrial beings, but their evolution paths can be traced back to organisms on Earth, 520 million years ago. This means that the Tardigrade has survived all of the mass extinction events, that is not an easy feat. Your adaptations have to be godly, your structure would have to be ideal, you would have to almost immortal...
Fossils show that tardigrade has been around for the past 530 million years, and it has managed to survive through all five mass extinction events that the world has seen. With the ability to halt their metabolism for decades at a time tardigrade have an impressive way to survive. Cryptobiosis has yet another less expected benefit for the tardigrade. When in its dehydrated form the organism's DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) breaks down into smaller fragments. As the organism rehydrates its nucleus isn't fully formed and is susceptible to taking in foreign DNA. Sequencing tardigrades genome has revealed that roughly 17 percent of its DNA comes from other organisms like bacteria, plants, fungi and archaea. This horizontal gene transfer like all mutations is a random process and not all mutations will be beneficial but it is strongly suspected this explains the extremophile nature of the tardigrade. (Mcdonald, 2015)
Parus bicolor, commonly known as the tufted titmouse is a small bird species native to many places in North America. The taxonomy for the tufted titmouse follows this hierarchy: Kingdom Animalia, Family Parade, Genus Parus, and species Paris bicolor. Originally, the tufted titmouse only inhabited few areas of the around the South East, and slowly the species migrated up the East Coast, and even a few subspecies have developed in Texas. They thrive best in woodlands, swamps, river basins, and other vegetative areas. Occupying the tops of many deciduous trees, the Tufted Titmouse offers many positive factors to an ecosystem.
Tardigens are usually the first living creatures on new lands, even though humans claim all the glories Tardigrades are actually the first to land on the new land even if its a harsh land. They can live in as cold as minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit or highs of more than 300 degrees F (148.9 C), according to Smithsonian magazine. Not even radiation, boiling liquids, massive amounts of pressure of us to six times the pressure of the deepest part of the ocean and even the vacuum of space without any protection can harm the (for a good 10 days at least). Even though tardigrades can live just about anywhere they prefer to live in moist environments such as lakes, moss,