Scientist Urges Dormant Eggs to Life to Test Evolution

April 14, 2005 — -- Scientists are bringing the past to life by hatching eggs once thought to be dead and producing colonies of animals as they existed decades ago.

They are calling it "resurrection ecology," and it's a whole new field that quite literally allows scientists to observe evolution as it occurred, using animals that were quite different than their kinfolk today.

And who do they have to think for it all? Alice in Wonderland.

Alice, as we all know, had a pretty difficult life in Lewis Carroll's yarn. In one scene she complained to the queen that she didn't seem to be getting anywhere even though she was running as hard as she could.

She was admonished that resting on her laurels was not an option. "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place," the queen told her.

In 1973, biologist Leigh Van Valen of the University of Chicago picked up on that theme and postulated that in nature, it's not enough to tread water. One must constantly evolve to keep abreast, or ahead, of predators.

That became known as the Red Queen Hypothesis, suggesting that change is not only good, it's essential because without it, organisms will perish. You've got to stay ahead of the competition.

For decades now, scientists have tried to either prove, or disprove, Valen's argument. And now, at least one group thinks it has succeeded.

"We are confirming the Red Queen Hypothesis," says biologist W. Charles Kerfoot of Michigan Technological University, who has spent years now chasing Alice to see if she really did have to keep running just to stay in place. He is one of several authors who took over a recent issue of the journal Limnology and Oceanography, reporting widespread results in the search for "resting eggs" that are dormant, but still alive.

Kerfoot found his answer in the murky waters beneath an inland lake on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Portage Lake has gone through many changes over the past century. Copper mines flooded the lake with debris. Dredging changed its nature considerably. And more recently, the waters have been depleted of oxygen through the growth of algae, a process called eutrophication.