The Importance of Small Planktonic Copepods and Their Roles in Pelagic Marine Food Webs

Jefferson T. Turner (2004) The importance of small planktonic copepods and their roles in pelagic marine food webs. Zoological Studies 43(2): 255-266. Small planktonic marine copepods (< 1 mm in length) are the most abundant metazoans on Earth. Included are adults and copepodites of calanoid genera such as Paracalanus, Clausocalanus, and Acartia; cyclopoid genera such as Oithona, Oncaea, and Corycaeus; plank-tonic harpacticoids of the genus Microsetella; and nauplii of almost all copepod species. Despite the abun-dance of small copepods, they have historically been undersampled due to the use of nets with meshes> 200-333 µm. Recent studies have shown, however, that when appropriate net meshes of…