Resurrection ecology

"Resurrection ecology" is an evolutionary biology technique whereby researchers hatch dormant eggs from lake sediments to study animals as they existed decades ago. It is a new approach that might allow scientists to observe evolution as it occurred, by comparing the animal forms hatched from older eggs with their extant descendants.

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One such researcher in the field is W. Charles Kerfoot of Michigan Technological University whose results were published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography. He reported on success in a search for "resting eggs" of zooplankton that are dormant in Portage Lake on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The lake has undergone a considerable amount of change over the last 100 years including flooding by copper mine debris, dredging, and eutrophication.

Although the more esoteric demonstration of natural selection is alone a valuable aspect of the study described, there is a clear ecological implication in the discovery that very old zooplankton eggs have survived in the lake: the potential still exists, if and when this environment is restored to something of a more pristine nature, for at least some of the original (pre-disturbance) inhabitants to re-establish populations once presumed lost. The genes valuable to survival of those species in a restored environment are still "readily" available and may be quickly assimilated by the modern populations, perhaps requiring no more than a fortuitous disturbance of the bottom.

See also

• Limnology