High-throughput developmental assay of cold tolerance in Caenorhabditis elegans

Temperature can impose strong selection causing thermal tolerance variation between individuals, populations, and species. We developed a high-throughput larval development assay for cold tolerance in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans . We exposed animals to 4°C cold treatments for either 12 or 24 hours. Animals exposed to the 24-hour cold treatment exhibited greater variation and heritability in cold tolerance during the L1 larval stage. The high-throughput approach that we developed is easily scalable to simultaneously measure a large number of strains, which makes it ideal for studying the genetics and evolution of cold tolerance in Caenorhabditis nematodes.