Oar Feet and Opal Teeth is about free-living copepods and the copepodologists who study them. Copepods are a subclass of the arthropod class Crustacea. They act as dominant herbivores and small predators in the planktonic ecosystems of oceans, estuaries, and lakes. Copepods are likely the largest assemblage of complex animals on earth. These strikingly beautiful small crustaceans are of wide ecological significance and as complex and precisely adapted as insects. Yet few biologists and others interested in animals are familiar with them. In Oar Feet and Opal Teeth, Charles B. Miller introduces these small crustaceans and the scientists devoting their careers to revealing their biology.
In twenty-one chapters, Miller details the defining features and general biology of copepods. They typically have four or five pairs of oar-like feet to drive escape jumps. Teeth on mandible extensions are formed with siliceous minerals akin to opal. The first two chapters of the book closely examine the oar feet and mouth parts. Subsequent chapters describe internal anatomy, taxonomy, and many aspects of copepod natural history. Recent evolutionary insights about them are reviewed; those are based on molecular genetics and reach back to the Cambrian explosion.
Oar Feet and Opal Teeth includes over twenty biographical sketches of copepodologists from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Among them, Russell Hopcroft, a premier photographer of plankton, has full-color copepod images featured throughout the book. Jeannette Yen learned how Euchaeta marina detects prey and studies how ready-for-mating copepods find each other. Shinichi Uye of Hiroshima University studied the production by copepods of resting eggs and their delayed development. Grace Wyngaard is studying the special embryonic cell-divisions of some lake copepods for eliminating "junk DNA." Miller based most of the profiles featured in the book on personal interviews he conducted.
Reviews
I've been wanting to know more about copepods since I first learned of their glass teeth just a few years ago from Dr. Barbara Sullivan-a scientist and copepodologist I've long admired who is featured in this book. I was certain I would come away with a whole new understanding of copepods-and I did. To write a book that is both scientifically detailed and yet also a window into the author's life as well as the lives of those he writes about is an impressive feat. This reader was reminded of what a privilege it is to devote one's life to better understanding the world. I am grateful to be a scientist and re-invigorated to keep science moving forward. Thank you, Dr. Miller, for sharing your love of copepods and your affection for those who study them. * Robinson W. Fulweiler, Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin * To write a book that is both scientifically detailed and yet also a window into the author's life as well as the lives of those he writes about is an impressive feat.Thank you, Dr. Miller, for sharing your love of copepods and your affection for those who study them. * Robinson W. Fulweiler, L&O Bulletin *
Preface
Chapter
1. Planktonic Copepods Have Those Oar Feet Biographical
Sketch: Russ Hopcroft
Chapter
2. The Front End: Sensory Systems, Feeding
Limbs, Opal Teeth Biographical Sketch: Barbara Sullivan
Chapter
3. Let's Go
Inside Biographical Sketches: Esther Lowe and Tai Soo Park
Chapter
4. Alpha
Taxonomy I Biographical Sketch: Bruce Frost
Chapter
5. Alpha Taxonomy II
Biographical Sketches: Janet Bradford-Grieve and Taisoo Park (again)
Chapter
6. Feeding I: Various Modes Biographical Sketch: Jeannette Yen
Chapter
7.
Feeding II: More about Eating Biographical Sketch: Rudi Stricker
Chapter
8.
Not Being Eaten I: Diel Vertical Migration Biographical Sketches: Mark Ohman
and Steve Bollens
Chapter
9. Not Being Eaten II: More Strategies
Chapter
10.
Meeting and Mating: Sex in Wide-Open Water Biographical Sketches: Atsushi
Tsuda and Jeanette Yen (again)
Chapter
11. Reproduction, Free vs.
Sac-Spawners Biographical Sketches: Jeffery Runge, Barbara Niehoff, Thomas
Kiørboe, and Marina Sabatini
Chapter
12. Development Biographical Sketch:
Catherine Johnson
Chapter
13. Sex Determination in Copepods Biographical
Sketches: Roger Harris, Xabier Irigoien, and Tran The Do
Chapter
14.
Chromatin Diminution: Marvelous Mitoses Biographical Sketch: Grace Wyngaard
Chapter
15. Copepodite Diapause: Atlantic Biographical Sketches: Sheina
Marshall, A.P. Orr, Mark Baumgartner, and Ann Tarrant
Chapter
16. Copepodite
Diapause: Pacific and Indian Biographical Sketch: Sharon Smith
Chapter
17.
Egg Diapause Biographical Sketches: Edward Zillioux and J. Kenneth Johnson
Chapter
18. Molecular Genetics Applied to Copepods Biographical Sketch: Ann
Bucklin
Chapter
19. Beta Taxonomy I: Copepod Sprigs on the Tree of Life
Biographical Sketches: Abraham Fleminger and Erica Goetze
Chapter
20. Beta
Taxonomy II: Copepods in the Stream of Time Biographical Sketches: Geoffrey
Boxshall and Rony Huys
Chapter
21. Copepod Phylogenies from Mitochondrial DNA
Sequences Biographical Sketch: Diego Figueroa Index
Charles B. Miller is Professor Emeritus of Oceanography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. He co-authored Biological Oceanography with Patricia Wheeler (in its second edition as of 2012). Professor Miller is a member of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.
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