ABSTRACT
Water is an indispensable factor ensuring life on Earth. Water facilitates many vital biological reactions by being a solvent, a transport medium, and evaporative coolant (Bohnert et al. 1995). Organisms dispose with great ability to spread in various water environments, but the level of tolerance to changes in water content affects their spreading. The modern scientic study of drought tolerance began in 1702 when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered that rotifers could survive without water for months (cited in Bernacchia and Furini 2004). Now, it is known that a few groups of animals and a wide variety of plants can tolerate desiccation in the adult stages of their life cycle.
