Project description

A varying environment is a considerable challenge to most organisms, especially if the local environment fluctuates between inhabitable and uninhabitable conditions. To overcome periods of zero or very low survival probability, the organisms have two major options; either to escape in space (i.e., migrate or disperse) or in time by entering resting stages. Within this project we focus on questions related to evolution of resting stages such as diapause and cryptobiosis (cryptobiosis is a totally ametabolic state used by for example tardigrades and nematodes). As part of the project we model the evolution of diapause/cryptobiosis in different stages of an organism’s life cycle. Why do some organisms use only dormancy as eggs while others can become dormant in all the stages of their lifecycle? One other question is the evolution of partial dormancy, which seams relatively rare in comparison to partial migration.

Members

Helen Ivarsson, Per Lundberg, Niclas Jonzén, Jörgen Ripa

Related publications

Ivarsson, H., Ripa, J., Lundberg, P. 2005. Evolution of multi-stage dormancy in temporally autocorrelated environments. Evolutionary Ecology Research 7:1125-1137