This special volume of Advances in Marine Biology covers in detail the biology of calanoid copepods. Copepods are probably the most numerous multicellular organisms on earth. They are aquatic animals that live in both marine and fresh water, and are of prime importance in marine ecosystems as they form a direct link between phytoplankton and fish. This volume is essential for all marine biologists.Advances in Marine Biology contains up-to-date reviews of all areas of marine science, including fisheries science and macro/micro fauna. Each volume contains peer-reviewed papers detailing the ecology of marine regions.

Copepod crustaceans are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth. They occur in every free-living and parasitic aquatic niche. Copepods have been known since the time of Aristotle, yet there has never been a history of the study of copepods. This volume, the first in a planned three-volume series, reviews the discoveries of copepods to 1832, the year that the two distinct branches, the free-living copepods (long-known as insects) and the parasitic copepods (thought to be molluscs or worms) were finally acknowledged as members of the same Class Crustacea. The narrative includes the biographies of 90 early copepodologists and recounts their most important contributions to science. Portraits are included for two-thirds of the subjects, with considerable new material as well as information and illustrations from obscure sources. Milestones include the first description of copepods (ca. 350 B.C.), the first illustration (1554), the first free-living freshwater copepod (1688), the first explanation of a free-living copepod's metamorphosis (1756), the first permanently named copepod (1758), the first free-living marine copepod (1770), and the first description of a parasitic copepod's metamorphosis (1819). The work ends with a transition to the mid-19th century, previewing numerous personal connections that pointed toward copepodology's Golden Age in the 1890s, to be covered in Volume 2. A final volume will take the history of the study of copepods to ca. 1950.

This landmark scientific reference for scientists, researchers, and students of marine biology tackles the monumental task of taking a complete biodiversity inventory of the Gulf of Mexico with full biotic and biogeographic information. Presenting a comprehensive summary of knowledge of Gulf biota through 2004, the book includes seventy-seven chapters, which list more than fifteen thousand species in thirty-eight phyla or divisions and were written by 138 authors from seventy-one institutions in fourteen countries.This first volume of Gulf of Mexico Origin, Waters, and Biota, a multivolumed set edited by John W. Tunnell Jr., Darryl L. Felder, and Sylvia A. Earle, provides information on each species' habitat, biology, and geographic range, along with full references and a narrative introduction to the group, which opens each chapter.