Cnidarians have long been considered simple animals in spite of the variety of their complex life cycles anddevelopmental patterns. Several cases of developmental conversion are known, leading to the formation of restingstages or to offspring proliferation. Besides their high regenerative and asexual-reproduction potential, a number of cnidarianscan undergo ontogeny reversal, or reverse development: one or more stages in the life cycle can reactivate geneticprograms specific to earlier stages, leading to back-transformation and morph rejuvenation. The switch isachieved by a variable combination of cellular processes, such as transdifferentiation, programmed cell death, and proliferationof interstitial cells. The potential for ontogeny reversal has limited ecological meaning and is probably just anextreme example of a more general strategy for withstanding unfavourable periods and allowing temporal persistence ofspecies in the environment.
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