Tardigrades
Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are found anywhere in the world where there is water. I remember my first experience in highschool when we took lichens from trees and observed them under a microscope. What did we find? Moving animals, tardigrades. I immediately thought they were cute because they had little legs and claws. What I found so baffling is that these little organisms had structures like normal animals such as an eyespot, brain, salivary gland, esophagus, stomach, rectum, and cloaca. I was amazed by them and this was all before I learned about what they were really capable of.
"Terrestrial tardigrades have three basic states of being: active, anoxybiosis, and cryptobiosis."(American Scientist). The active state is the normal state. They eat, poop, grow, reproduce, etc. Anoxybiosis happens when its low on oxygen causing the tardigrade to "puff up like the Michelin Man and float around for a few days until its habitat dries out and it can resume active life". Cryptobiosis is when the tardigrade suspends its metabolism. Basically it kills itself but its able to come back. This is due to no water (which is relies on) causing it to shrivel up into a tun which is 1/3 of its body size. Tardigrades in cryptobiosis are able to survive 20 hours at -459 degrees Fahrenheit and even up to 20 months at -328 degrees Fahrenheit. They can survive 6,000 atmospheres of pressure, extreme concentrations of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, x-rays and radiation.
Researchers even sent the water bears to space. They were the first multicellular organisms to survive the extreme and deadly environment of outer space. "While the experimental vessel orbited 260 kilometers above Earth, researchers triggers the opening of a container with tardigrade tuns inside and exposed them to the Sun. When the tuns were returned ot Earth and rehydrated, the animals moved, ate, grew, shed, and reproduced" (American Scientist).
Tardigrades are absolutely nuts. I would love to personally research them myself if I ever got the chance.
RESOURCES:
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/tardigrades
Whoa! This is so fascinating. I have learned a little bit about water bears (tardigrades) before but I did not know they have 3 states. I also think it's awesome how you described the Anoxybiosis form as them puffing up into little Michelin men. Love it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this awesome info! I had never heard of a Water Bear before you told me about them. They're crazy little critters!! I loved your meme, it's *chef's kiss*
ReplyDeleteTardigrades are crazy little survivors. My first experience with tardigrades was pretty similar to yours, we collected water samples from a pond outside my high school to observe under microscopes and one of us had managed to scoop up a tardigrade. They really are able to just take whatever is thrown at them and keep going with the punches.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting post Haley! I wonder what tardigrade DNA is like and what about it makes them so resilient to damage? Maybe more research could find medical uses for their resilience. Their DNA is supposedly programmed to be resilient to radiation. My high school biology teacher gave us a similar experience, she really liked water bears.
ReplyDeleteI was so hoping that someone would write about tardigrades for this module! They are such fascinating creatures. I'm interested in what Megan pointed out about what exactly is in their DNA that makes them so resilient in extreme environments. So I did a little bit of research and found that there was a study done to answer this question. Scientists found that tardigrade success is mainly due to horizontal gene transfer, or tardigrade's incorporating DNA from other organisms, such as bacteria, into their own genome. If it's sharing DNA with extremophile bacteria, it can acquire some of those survivability traits for the same types of extreme environments. The study showed that roughly 1/6th of the tardigrade genome is "stolen" from other organisms. However, there have been arguments against this theory and more research is needed to have a finite conclusion. Nevertheless, these creatures are truly awesome and worth all the attention they get.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tardigrades-turn-out-not-be-dna-thieves-180964236/
I am so glad you talked about water bears!! When I think of wacky animals I immediately think of tardigrades. I am also glad you included the diagram of them in different states because I've never seen that before. Thanks for sharing!
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