The role of the refractory period in diapause length determination in a freshwater crustacean

We investigate here the mechanism of allochronic resumption of development by the dormant forms in organisms inhabiting temporary habitats. The cohorts of resting eggs of a short living freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna collected in two temporary waters at two occasions (spring and autumn) were exposed after different storage periods (0–16 weeks) spent either in wet or dry conditions to a given set of hatching stimuli announcing appearance of favourable conditions. Freshly formed resting eggs did not hatch or hatched occasionally. The resting eggs formed in autumn hatched more eagerly than the spring ones when exposed to favourable conditions after wet storage. The hatching proportion increased linearly up to 68–82% in autumn resting eggs while to 33–44% in the spring ones over 16 weeks of storage that might have covered several generations of the active forms. Dry storage of the resting eggs reduced their hatching proportion considerably. We suspect that the length variation of a refractory period (initial phase of developmental arrest when resting forms remain insensitive to hatching stimuli) followed by a reactivation period may constitute the simplest two-step physiological mechanism allowing staggering revival of the dormant forms in subsequent generations that maximise chances for survival in unpredictably changing habitats.