Several models for the evolution of complex life histories have assumed a carrying capacity for both larval and postlarval stages. In addition, the densities of larvae in laboratory experiments are often so high that there is competition for food. Published values for maximal clearance rates and estimated abundances of larvae suggest that these assumptions and experimental conditions are unrealistic for most marine larvae. For most ciliated larvae, maximum clearance rates are at most a few mi of water daily, and their estimated larval concentrations are at most one to several larvae per liter. Therefore these larvae appear to be too scarce for their grazing to affect their food supply. Larvae of most species are also scarce relative to co-occurring planktonic animals that feed on particles in the same size range. Larvae of many species are scarce relative to co-occurring larvae with a similar feeding apparatus. These observations suggest that larvae of most species have a negligible effect on their food supply. Exceptions could occur when a single species of larva dominates the zooplankton; such circumstances appear to be rare, although extreme aggregations of larvae dominated by a single species could be missed by pump or net samples. Analogous but more conjectural arguments can be made for density-dependent attraction of predators to larval prey. These inferences apply to single species, not to meroplanktonic larvae as a whole: in some coastal waters, larvae of benthic invertebrates comprise a large portion of the multicellular planktonic animals. Also, a species' larval growth may be food-limited in many waters, even when the abundance of food is independent of the abundance of its larvae.