The Suspected Contradictory Role of Parental Care in the Adaption of Planktonic Calanoida to Temporary Freshwater

Calanoida have the highest number of species among Copepoda in marine plankton, but not in fresh water, where the greatest number are Cyclopoida. Freshwater Cyclopoida also live in more freshwater sites than Calanoida. This could be a consequence of an invasion of freshwater by marine Cyclopoida before Calanoida. Similar to Cyclopoida, but different from marine Calanoida, freshwater Calanoida females produce egg sacs and care for eggs. This strategy is common among all freshwater plankton, suggesting that the evolution of parental care is an obliged adaption to conquer fresh water. Calanoida, different from Cyclopoida, survive adverse conditions as resting eggs. This life-cycle constraint obliges eggs to survive their mother’s death and wait in the benthos for a certain period. The necessity of completing embryonic development and the hatching of eggs far from the mother’s protection may be responsible for the relatively lower evolutionary success of Calanoida in fresh water compared to Cyclopoida (which rest as juveniles, thus protecting eggs in any moment of their development). Therefore, the brooding of eggs appears to be the obliged solution for Calanoida’s final establishment in fresh water, but the dispersion of eggs on the bottom after the mother’s death and during the rest period is probably the weak point in Calanoida’s competition with Cyclopoida.