The developing gastrula embryos of Artemia salina are resistant to a complete redesiccation during a period of pre-emergence development. Isolated nuclei from these dehydrated embryos could retain a transcriptional activity in vitro comparable with that of non-desiccated controls. On the other hand, redesiccation of both prenauplii and nauplii completely destroys their viability as well as the nuclear transcriptional activity. However, those gastrula embryos that did not develop in a first incubation period could remain viable and develop with a considerable time-lag after a subsequent second incubation.
