Free-living animals differ widely in their tolerance to the absence of molecular oxygen (anoxia): most die within hours or days under these conditions, and even well-adapted forms such as intertidal invertebrates do not survive more than a month or so of continuous anoxia (Hochachka, 1980; Hochachka and Guppy, 1987; Bryant, 1991). A striking exception is the brine shrimp, Artemia franciscana, w...

Many life history stages of animals that experience environmental insults enter developmental arrested states that are characterized by reduced cellular proliferation, with or without a concurrent reduction in overall metabolism. In the case of the most profound metabolic arrest reported in invertebrates, i.e., anaerobic quiescence in Artemia franciscana embryos, acidification of the intracellu...