The movements of a marine copepod in a tidal lagoon.

It has been hypothesized that marine copepods are able to react to water movements in an estuary in such a way as to minimize advective losses to the open ocean. The model is used to describe the movements of Acratia tonsa (Copepoda) in a tidal lagoon on the eastern end of Galveston Island, Texas. Four distinct processes are considered: advection by currents, behavioural response to environmental variables, intraspecific aggragation, and birth-death processes. The biological model is driven by a three- dimensional physical dynamic model which provides numerical solutions for current velocity, temperature, and salinity fields.