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How long to rest in unpredictably changing habitats?
Mirosław Slusarczyk1, Jacek Starzyński2, Piotr Bernatowicz3,4
1University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Department of Hydrobiology at Biological and Chemical Research Centre, Warsaw, Poland.
Plos One
|April 19, 2017
Summary
Organisms in unpredictable environments evolve diverse dormancy periods, not a single optimum length, to survive resource fluctuations. This bet-hedging strategy diversifies survival across generations.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary Biology
- Ecology
- Theoretical Biology
Background:
- Organisms face environmental uncertainty, necessitating adaptive strategies for survival.
- Prolonged dormancy (developmental arrest) is a strategy observed in various species to overcome unfavorable periods.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the optimal duration of prolonged dormancy in organisms under uncertain environmental conditions.
- To simulate the evolutionary dynamics of suspended development in unpredictable habitats.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an artificial life model to simulate a virtual population of semelparous parthenogenetic individuals.
- Varied the duration of developmental arrest and resource availability to observe evolutionary responses.
- Analyzed population dynamics and resource competition under stochastic environmental variability.
Main Results:
- Continuous development is favored under stable resource conditions.
- Temporal developmental arrest becomes advantageous with fluctuating resources, promoting a bet-hedging strategy.
- Organisms evolved a diversified range of dormancy periods rather than a single optimum length.
- Maximum dormancy length increased with environmental variability and decreased with dormant form mortality.
Conclusions:
- Bet-hedging through diversified dormancy periods enhances survival in unpredictable environments.
- Prolonged dormancy is beneficial in both erratic and seasonally variable habitats.
- The study proposes alternative explanations for very long diapause (VLD) beyond bet-hedging.
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