View article

Many representatives of freshwater zooplankton produce at some stage in their life cycle resting stages. A variable portion of the eggs of the previous growing period will hatch at the next occasion while the remaining ones are added to a persistent egg bank, where they can remain viable for decades or longer. The importance of the study of resting eggs and egg banks in general for such different disciplines as taxonomy, ecological biogeography, paleolimnology, nature conservation, evolutionary ecology and community and population ecology is generally appreciated. The major current and expected future developments in this rapidly expanding field of research are presented here. The structure and dynamics of the egg bank are determined by the life history characteristics of the species (or local population), the hatching phenology of their resting stages, and the characteristics of the habitat. The …