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Introduction
to History
of Copepodology
by
David Damkaer
With
the universal aquatic occurrence of copepods, it is not surprising
that they were noted by the earliest naturalists. Beginning
two thousand years ago, many scientists and "lovers of
wisdom" with names still known and respected throughout the
world, like Aristotle, Pliny, Rondelet, Redi, Leeuwenhoek, and
Linnaeus, observed copepods. Their careful records became a
part of our long written heritage, now numbering around 37,000
published works about copepods.
The
copepod world took shape against the vast background of other
invertebrates. Our science saw many valuable contributions
in the century after the establishment of Linnaeus's taxonomic
system in 1758. Pioneer scientists revealed the surprising
reproduction and developmental metamorphosis of copepods as well
as their roles throughout the natural world, particularly their
significance at the food-base of fisheries. Honored names
and landmark monographs from this period include those of Otto
Friderich Müller (1730-1784, Denmark), Jean Baptiste Lamarck
(1744-1829, France), Georges Cuvier (1769-1832, France), Louis
Jurine (1751-1819, Switzerland), James Dwight Dana (1813-1895,
United States), and William Baird (1803-1872, England).
Since
copepods did not have the immediate impact or urgency of plants,
insects, or larger animals, they were studied only incidentally
until the middle of the 19th century. Even so, by that time,
there was a strong conceptual framework that recognized a wide
variety of copepod species and habitats; even the remarkably
"degenerate" parasitic copepods were no longer thought
to be worms or mollusks but were revealed by their larval stages
to be true crustaceans. The name "copepod" (Greek
for paddle-footed) was introduced in 1830 by Henri Milne Edwards
(1800-1885) in France. The early taxonomic systems echo in
our classifications of today.
The
first prominent scientist to devote most of his life to copepods
was Carl Claus (1835-1899), Professor of Zoology at the University
of Vienna. In 1863, Claus published the first book dealing
only with copepods. This helpful treatise summarized the
knowledge of free-living copepods of western Europe and the
Mediterranean Sea. Claus's other works included classic
studies of parasitic copepods, adding especially to the useful
papers of Henrik Krøyer (1799-1870) from Denmark.
After
Darwin, in 1859, naturalists focused on completing Nature's book
by describing and indicating the relationships of every species, a
task that is far from finished. This quest took biologists
to the far corners of the earth and to the greatest depths of the
seas. Extensive oceanographic expeditions in the last
quarter of the 19th century brought an unbelievable harvest of
copepods for an expanding and exclusive copepod literature.
The decade before and after 1900 was the Golden Age of
Copepodology, with the beautiful and indispensable monographs of
Wilhelm Giesbrecht (1854-1913, Germany and Italy), Eugène
Canu (1864-1952, France), Otto Schmeil (1860-1943, Germany), and
Georg Ossian Sars (1837-1927, Norway).
Also,
toward the end of the 19th century, the founder of ecology Karl
Möbius (1825-1908) and his followers began to measure the
precise impacts of copepods on their living and non-living
surroundings. More consideration was given to developmental,
geographical, and population characteristics of copepods.
With
the 20th century, women scientists became equal partners in the
study of copepods. Among the first were Maria Dahl
(1872-1972) and Marie Lebour (1876-1971). These years saw
marvelous technical improvements in microscopes and sampling, and
a movement toward physiology and the investigation of living
copepods. Sheina Marshall (1896-1977), Andrew Picken Orr
(1898-1962), Aubrey Nicholls (1904-1986), and Frederick Russell
(1897-1984) laid the foundation of these studies, a large part of
copepodology's present efforts.
The
lives of many of our heroes are overwhelming, and they stand in
the highest ranks of biology in every nation. Many who are
well known for other accomplishments made critical additions to
the body of copepod knowledge. Their teachings and research
became centers of excellence, attracting students from far and
wide. Their names are linked forever with the variety,
distribution, and behavior of the freshwater, marine, free-living,
and parasitic copepods they described. Among these immortals
are P. J. Van Beneden, V. Brehm, A. Brian, K. Brodsky, C. van
Douwe, C. O. Esterly, G. Grice, R. Gurney, H. J. Hansen, W. A.
Herdman, A. G. Humes, Fr. Kiefer, W. Klie, H. Kunz, K. Lang, A.
Markevich, C. D. Marsh, H. Marukawa, T. Mori, J. Richard, M.
Rose, V. Rylov, T. & A. Scott, A. Steuer, O. Tanaka, C. B.
Wilson, and many others who have become our own. The working
copepodologist sees in these names essential publications kept
close at hand, milestones in a unique science.
Copepodology
continues uninterrupted into the 21st century, looking now at
copepods in ecosystems of oceans, lakes, and rivers, from deep-sea
vents to groundwaters. Armed with new tools like electron
microscopes, remote sensing, molecular biology, and computers,
copepodologists explore genetics, medical/morphological
applications, mathematical modeling, precision sampling, a wealth
of new species from extreme habitats, environmental pollution and
over-harvesting, introduced species, and many other consequences
and opportunities undreamed of by our predecessors.
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