Water-Loss and Anhydrobiotic Survival in Nematodes of Antarctic Fellfields

Abstract

The Antarctic fellfield habitat is an externe terrestrial environment in which the survival of organisms depends upon an ability to withstand both bery low temperatures and severe water shortage. The potential to survive desiccation by entering a state of anhydrobiosis, and the conditions necessary to induce this state, were investigated in two species of free-living nematodes: Teratocephalus tilbrooki which inhabits the relatively sheltered environment of a moss cushion; and Ditylenchus sp. B, which lives in the more exposed aerial thalli of a lichen