The MFA assay is a modification of the sequential fluorometric method of Bentle et al. , in which DNA and RNA in a single sample are determined sequentially by the addition of DNase and RNase using Ethidium bromide as a fluorescent dye (see Caldarone et al., 2006 for details). Wagner et al. modified the sequential fluorometric method to the MFA with 96-well microtiter plates by adopting a sarcosyl extraction technique and eliminating the DNase step, thus allowing application of the assay to small samples (single copepods) without extended working time.