ZOOPLANKTON EGG BANKS AS BIOTIC RESERVOIRS IN CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS

The long-lived diapausing eggs of zooplankton constitute an ecological and evolutionary reservoir that can impact the rate and direction of population, community, and ecosystem response to environmental change. Viable diapausing eggs are often extremely abundant and can survive i n aquatic sediments for decades or longer. As the mean environment cha nges, the frequency of extreme conditions will likely increase, and sp ecies with prolonged diapause will be able to survive extreme years of no recruitment, whereas species lacking an egg bank will not. An alte red environment may change which species have poor recruitment and eve n, through effects on thermal diapause cues, which species produce an egg bank. The interaction between environmental variation and generati on overlap (produced by prolonged diapause) results in the maintenance of biotic diversity (both species richness and genetic variation), wh ich forms the foundation for response to future environmental change.