Biological Oceanography

Nauplii with deformed limbs are not found in field collections, where diatoms are
certainly sometimes the food of female copepods. Normal nauplii are capable of
remarkable escape jumps, but those with abnormal limbs are likely to be removed
very rapidly from the stock. However, the phenomenon does occur in the field;
Miralto et al. (1999) found a case in which spawn from Calanus helgolandicus
females that were definitely eating diatoms had very low hatching rates. The effect is
toxic, not nutritional. Miralto et al. demonstrated that the toxic compounds are a small