Since in Gagea the plants replace all structures of the vegetation body completely every year, and only the replacement bulb survives dormancy periods, only a mark-revisit approach over several years would provide reliable age data.
Desert snails survive through aestivation (dormancy), often remaining inactive for several years before being revived by rainfall.
When lakes, ponds, or rivers dry up, for example, aquatic organisms that can enter a period of dormancy survive, while others perish.
Metabolic processes that are critical for the pathogen to go into dormancy, survive under this non-replicating drug-resistant state, and get reactivated when the immune system of the host is weakened remain poorly understood.
Before the discovery that ocean currents were the opposite of what they are today, thus favoring such an event, it was thought that it would have taken too long for any animal not capable of entering a state of dormancy to survive the trip.
These features enable them to withstand harsh environments and to survive long periods of dormancy [ 4- 7].
Prion diseases, it turns out, have an insane potential for dormancy, surviving for years or decades before kicking into gear and ravaging our bodies.
In addition, some species, such as the striped mud turtle (K. baurii), survive drought periods through estivation (dormancy) under a shallow layer of mud.
The researchers suspect that chemicals given off after death, or the low levels of oxygen or nutrients in corpses, or a combination of all these factors, could have sent the stem cells into dormancy, helping them survive for weeks.
We have used this concept of channel-opening to design solutions in which cells achieve a state of dormancy, and can survive without energy input for days or weeks.
