Researchers at Trinity College Dublin identified a temperature-related factor affecting all life on Earth, a finding with broad implications for all species as the planet warms.

What's happening?

According to nature- and wildlife-focused sources like the National Park Service and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, scientists have long known that climate fluctuations and unstable average temperatures have adversely affected wildlife.

Researchers published a new study in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that examined this impact through a more cohesive lens. Their findings centered on what they called a "universal thermal performance curve."

Although that phrase can seem somewhat jargon-like, the underlying premise is extremely simple: They identified a consistent pattern across life-forms on Earth, one that strictly governs how living things respond to heat.

The study's authors observed that this metric connected "what once seemed to be countless unrelated data sets" from different species into one overriding, three-part pattern.

Irrespective of the organism, researchers found that performance increased incrementally as temperatures rose before reaching what they described as the "optimum point." After that, "performance drops sharply," heading toward "physiological breakdown or death."

As the study's accompanying press release noted, while the finding was instructive and of value to the scientific community, it also hinted at a hard evolutionary ceiling as temperatures rise.

In a university press release, the authors explained that the universality of this curve "essentially 'shackles evolution,' as no species seem to have broken free from the constraints it imposes on how temperature affects" all life on Earth.

Why is this finding important?

Trinity College Dublin professor Andrew Jackson co-authored the study, and in the press release, the researchers placed the study's findings in the broader context of rapidly rising temperatures.

He explained why the finding is both useful for adaptation strategies and unsettling in equal measure.

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"What we have shown here is that all the different curves are in fact the same exact curve, just stretched and shifted over different temperatures," Jackson said, addressing the universality of the curve between life-forms. 

"And what's more, we have shown that the optimal temperature and the critical maximum temperature at which death occurs are inextricably linked," he added. In other words, this particular "law" they identified, the UTPC, served as an inexorable constraint on all species. 

As temperatures continue rising, "all life-forms remain remarkably constrained by this 'rule' on how temperature influences their ability to function," said co-author Dr. Nicholas Payne.

What's being done about it?

According to Payne, the "next step" entailed using the model as a "benchmark" to determine if any life-forms can "break away from this pattern."

Payne added that identifying any deviations could aid scientists tremendously as the planet is "likely to keep warming in the next decades."

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