Cryptobiosis is an adaptation that some plants, animals (including tardigrades) and microbes exhibit whereby they enter a reversible near-ametabolic state in order to survive adverse environmental conditions such as desiccation or temperature extremes.
In the Pienaar lab, we are culturing various bryophyte species, along with the tardigrades, rotifers and nematodes typically associated with these miniature plants. All of these organisms contain examples of cryptobiotic species and we are interested in quantifying the degree to which these organisms are cryptobiotic, the nature of this trait, variation in this trait, and why such variation exists. We use a combination of genomic, transcriptomic, phenomic and experimental microscopic techniques to get at this question. Ultimately we are interested in comparing this trait across tardigrades, bryophytes, rotifers and nematodes (deep evolutionary time) in order to understand the general mechanisms and evolution of this fascinating trait.
Relevant Publications
Momeni, S., Fuentes‐González, J., & Pienaar, J. (2022). How to culture limnoterrestrial heterotardigrades. Invertebrate Biology, 141(1), e12360.
Loeffelholz, J., Stahl, L., Momeni, S., Turberville, C., & Pienaar, J. (2021). Trichoderma infection of limno-terrestrial tardigrades. Journal of invertebrate pathology, 186, 107677.
Turberville, C. M., Fuentes-González, J. A., Rogers, S., & Pienaar, J. (2021). Moss phyllid morphology varies systematically with substrate slope. Plant Ecology and Evolution, 154(3), 419-431