Data and analysis code for "Extreme temperature exposure has negative demographic consequences for <i>Sulfolobus acidocaldarius</i>"

Here, we investigated demographic responses of the thermophilic archaeon <i>Sulfolobus </i><i>acidocaldarius</i><i> </i>to an extreme temperature (94.1°C) under two regimes: sustained exposure varying in duration, and episodic exposure interspersed with recovery at a permissive temperature (75 °C).

Under sustained exposure, populations showed no detectable loss of viability after 15 min but declined thereafter, decreasing by approximately five orders of magnitude after 120 min. Under episodic exposure, populations remained viable across nine exposure-recovery cycles but declined in density with successive cycles. Similar responses were observed for three strains, including a DNA mismatch repair knockout (Δ<i>nucS</i>), indicating that mismatch repair deficiency did not affect viability or recovery.