Speaker: Prof. Rony Huys, Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, U.K. [Website]

Title: Copepods – an introduction to the most abundant metazoan clade of the Tree of Life

Abstract: 

No group of plants or animals on Earth exhibits the range of morphological diversity as seen among the extant Crustacea. This structural disparity is best demonstrated by the Copepoda, which show an immense vertical distribution – from the abyss to 5,500 m altitude in the Himalayas, spanning three quarters of the possible global vertical range on the planet. Copepods are aquatic microcrustaceans – the microscopical relatives of the crabs and the shrimps and are often dubbed “the insects of the sea” – usually ranging in size between 200 μm and 5 mm. They have colonized the biggest environment on Earth – the massive 1,347 million km³ volume of water in the global oceans –, made the transition from the sea to all freshwater habitats up to the Himalayan mountains, and have entered into symbiotic relationships with virtually every marine phylum, from sponges to chordates, including mammals and reptiles. They underpin the world’s freshwater and marine ecosystems, are sensitive bio-indicators of local and global climate change, key ecosystem service providers, and parasites of economically important aquatic animals. Copepods sustain the majority of world fisheries and, through their role as vectors of disease, also have a number of direct and indirect effects on human health and quality of life. In this talk I will present a brief overview of the various aspects of the natural history of the group and introduce the audience to their spectacular diversity displayed in body shape, form and life cycle strategy.