- Researchers have uncovered a universal pattern showing how temperature affects life on Earth. Across thousands of species—from microbes to reptiles—performance rises gradually with warming until an optimal temperature is reached, after which it drops sharply. Although each species has its own preferred temperature range, they all follow the same underlying curve. This surprising constraint suggests evolution may have limited room to help species cope with rapid climate warming.
Scientists discovered a universal temperature rule that seems to govern all life—and it may limit how species adapt to a warming world. Researchers at Trinity College Dublin report that they have uncovered what appears to be a "universal thermal performance curve" (UTPC) that applies across the entire tree of life. According to the team, this pattern governs how organisms respond to changes in temperature. The findings suggest that this rule effectively "shackles evolution," because no species studied so far has managed to escape the limits it places on how temperature influences biological performance.
Temperature affects every living organism. The newly described UTPC brings together tens of thousands of previously separate performance curves that scientists have used to understand how well different species function at various temperatures. The researchers found that these curves all follow the same underlying pattern. This applies not only across species, but also across many different types of biological activity. The pattern holds whether scientists are testing how fast lizards run on a treadmill, measuring how sharks swim in the ocean, or tracking how quickly bacterial cells divide.
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