Visualizing Microbial Seascapes - Spring

Copepods and Polychaetes have developed physical and tactical ways of avoiding predation and consuming food. They are both invertebrates with bilateral symmetry and have evolved many ways to sense and avoid predators. Copepods and Polychaetes are both grazers and secondary producers. Copepods have a hard exoskeleton providing them with a durable shell for defense. In addition they can sense organisms around them using their antennae while making little to no motion until they are ready to attack. Polychaetes are also able to form hard shells through processes of calcification. From within this structure they extend their feeders which sense and consume dissolved organic matter. Both of these creatures demonstrate the creative techniques that organisms have evolved in order to protect themselves.