A longstanding view in zooplankton research has been that large copepods ar
e the important members of most communities. It has also been thought that
warm water communities contain smaller copepods than temperate waters, with
cold polar waters containing large species. We present copepod size spectr
a from detailed microscopic analysis of tropical and temperate locations, t
o challenge these paradigms. While the size range of copepods does increase
with decreasing temperature and with depth into oceanic waters, the fundam
ental attributes of the size spectra are similar. Small copepods and early
developmental stages dominate all communities.