Morphological peculiarities of Calanus finmarchicus and Calanus glacialis in the areas of the co-existence of their populations

Morphological studies of the females of Calanus finmarchicus, C. glacialis, and C. hyperboreus were performed for specimens sampled in different areas of the Greenland, Barents, Kara, and Laptev seas. Intraspecific variability was found for the ratio of the specimens characterized by different types of setae patterns on the endopodites of C. glacialis and C. finmarchicus. The variability of this parameter did not relate to the environmental peculiarities of the sampling sites and did not depend on the temperature regime. We assume that such differences may be the result of the hybridization of C. glacialis and C. finmarchicus due to the similarity of their reproduction systems and the overlapping of the body size ranges.