Access

News and Views

Nature 394, 423-425 (30 July 1998) | doi:10.1038/28743

naturejobs

More science jobs
Post a job for free

Marine biology:  Sex and the single copepod

Rory Howlett1

Consider the ocean as a watery discotheque, thronged with tiny organisms — in particular, copepod crustaceans, dominant constituents of the zooplankton, and desperate to find mates. With an estimated one hundred billion trillion potential partners to choose from, it might seem that copepod mating is trouble free, even given the need to find a partner of the same species, opposite sex and ready to reproduce.

  1. Rory Howlett is deputy biological sciences editor of Nature.
    e-mail: Email: nature@nature.com