Photo of the beach in Port Aransas, Texas

Schweppe Lecture Series

Dr. J. Rudi Strickler

Shaw Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Thursday, March 18, 2004, 7:00 PM
University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Visitor Center Auditorium

The Small Universe within the Large Ocean: How Do Planktonic Animals Find their Food and Mates without Running into Predators?

Copepods are tiny crustaceans that are an essential link between the microscopic plants at the base of the ocean's food chain and the fish we harvest from the sea. If we assume that every liter of the open ocean is populated by one copepod – an underestimate to be sure – then there are 13 billion billion animals out there looking for food, mates, and avoiding predators. These animals are small (less than three-eighths of an inch), swim slowly (about one length of their body per second), escape fast (about 100 body lengths per second), and can respond to chemicals, light, and water movements.

Visual observations, using near-infrared lasers, high-speed cameras, and special optics have allowed Dr. Strickler to investigate the “rules of life” within a liter of ocean water. In this presentation, Dr. Strickler will show with video clips the behaviors of copepods and will explain the underlying scientific principles. He will end his lecture with his newest results, which center on the question “And how does a fish see the world of the copepods?”

Zooplankters "entre-nous": A male cyclopoid copepod swims from the right closer to a female cladoceran in the hope to steal one of her eggs for food. She tries to avoid stirring up the water around her in order not to communicate her position. He hops one hop at the time and takes a few seconds to "listen" where she is. After this picture has been taken, he finds her track, follows it, catches up with her, holds on to her, and extracts one egg from her brood pouch.

Dr. Rudi Strickler is the Shaw Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. A native of Switzerland, Dr. Strickler has conducted research around the world. He has been on the faculty of several major universities, including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of Southern California, and Boston University. He is a world authority on zooplankton and has published more than 75 research papers.

The free lecture will be held at 7 p.m. in the Visitor Center of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, and the public is invited to attend. Dr. Strickler's visit to the Marine Science Institute is part of the Laura Randall Schweppe Endowed Lecture Series in Marine Science.

Modified:: Thursday January 08, 2004