Post‐collection molting rates of planktonic, marine copepods: Measurement, applications, problems1

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Abstract
Rates of molting of a specific copepodite stage can be determined by sorting the stage from a new collection, waiting, then counting the number that have molted to the next stage in the interval. In principle, stage duration can be determined as the inverse of the measured rate, and molting rates can be used directly in evaluation of mortality rates. In practice there are usually immediate molting bursts, higher initial rates than predicted from independently determined stage durations. For a coastal population of Calanus pacificus there was no difference between fed and unfed groups in the initial molting rates, suggesting that some animals had passed a threshold in the molting cycle before collection. Some instances of molting burst are by concentration of molting activity in the night.

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