Feeding season duration and the relative success of capital and income spawning copepods

In high latitude environments, two closely related Calanus copepods have developed opposite reproduction strategies to cope with the strongly seasonal fluctuation. Calanus finmarchicus copepods breeds relying on the available food (income breeder), while Calanus hyperboreus copepods spawn prior to the spring bloom, using only its reserves accumulated the previous year (capital breeder).

The success of these two strategies is related to the length of the spring bloom, the only source of nutrients for these copepods. We use an individual based model to approach the question of income versus capital breeders in a highly seasonal environment, and find that the capital breeders have a higher fitness during short spring bloom while the income breeder has an improved performance over long productive seasons