POTENTIAL AND REALIZED DIVERSITY OF COASTAL PLANKTON: THE ROLE OF RESTING STAGES IN ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING

Resting stages are the strategy for species to avoid the variability of environmental conditions. In coastal confined marine habitats, variability of conditions is higher than in the open sea, and bottoms accumulate plankton resting stages in the so-called “marine cyst banks”. The benthic-pelagic coupling generated by this bi-location of plankton, however, is not clearly evident for all the involved species. This result is due to the still scant knowledge of the life cycles and life histories of single species. The study of plankton dynamics from the benthos point of view is useful and informative and it increases the potential complexity of a planktonic community in a confined area. Keywords: plankton, life cycles, resting stages, cysts, benthic-pelagic coupling, resurrection ecology.