Heat shock in sea slugs

Dear Roni,
There has been a lot of work done over the years on heat stress, effect of heat etc on intertidal animals but its a bit outside the scope of the Sea Slug Forum. Most animals subject to stress in the intertidal are those which are uncovered at lowtide which is not the case with most intertidal sea slugs which live in tidepools. A very few sacoglossan sea slugs live in very high tidal pools which heat up at low tide but these are able to stand quite high temperatures.

Hermissenda crassicornis doesn't fit into that category. I can't imagine under normal conditions that it would experience heat stress. I also didn't know it was considered to be in grave danger of attack from other members of its own species. Quite a few glaucid aeolids will attack others of their own species in captivity, but this is probably a consequence of being kept in artificial, unnatural conditions of overcrowding.

Have you any evidence that Hermissenda suffers heat stress in natural conditions or that it attacks others of its own species? If you haven't, I can't quite see the point of the experiment.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman.