Annual Variations in Length of Copepods in the Sargasso Sea off Bermuda

Abstract

SUMMARYMeasurements of cephalothorax length were made on the females of five species of oceanic copepods for the period from January 1958 through August 1959. The seasonal length variations of the three species of Pleuromamma (P. piseki, P. abdominalis and P. xiphias) followed the cycle in total phytoplankton. Significant positive correlations were obtained between the mean lengths of P. abdominalis and P. piseki and the mean quantity of phytoplankton of the month previous to sampling, but there was no correlation between length and temperature.The seasonal length variations of females of Haloptilus longicornis and Lucicutia flavicornis differed in pattern from that of the Pleuromamma species and no correlation was found between their mean lengths and the annual cycles of phytoplankton or temperature. These species may feed selectively on some possibly unmeasured fraction of the plankton or on particulate organic matter.Previous work has shown that in waters with a wide temperature range there is a high negative correlation between length and temperature and no correlation between length and phytoplankton. In other regions with an intermediate temperature range the sizes of successive generations of copepods are correlated to almost equal degree with the temperature and the quantity of phytoplankton available during growth. In the Sargasso Sea, where there is a narrow temperature range but a definite seasonal cycle in total phytoplankton, the length variations of the Pleuromamma species are correlated with the phytoplankton cycle and not with temperature.