Dataset Information

Phytoplankton size diversity and ecosystem function relationships across oceanic regions.

ABSTRACT: Trait diversity, a key component of biodiversity, mediates many essential ecosystem functions and services. However, the mechanisms behind such relationships at large spatial scales are not fully understood. Here we adopt the functional biogeography approach to investigate how the size composition of phytoplankton communities relates to primary production and export production along a broad latitudinal gradient. Using in situ phytoplankton size distribution data and a trait-based model, we find an increase in the average phytoplankton size, size diversity, primary production and export when moving from low to high latitudes. Our analysis indicates that the interplay between spatio-temporal heterogeneities in environmental conditions and a trade-off between the high affinity for nutrients of smaller cells and the ability to avoid predation by larger cells are the main mechanisms driving the observed patterns. Our results also suggest that variations in size diversity alone do not directly lead to changes in primary production and export. The trade-off thus introduces a feedback that influences the relationship between size diversity and ecosystem functions. These findings support the importance of environmentally mediated trade-offs as crucial mechanisms shaping biodiversity and ecosystem function relationships at large spatial scales.

SUBMITTER: Acevedo-Trejos E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5998115 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Phytoplankton size diversity and ecosystem function relationships across oceanic regions.

Acevedo-Trejos Esteban E Marañón Emilio E Merico Agostino A

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20180501 1879

Trait diversity, a key component of biodiversity, mediates many essential ecosystem functions and services. However, the mechanisms behind such relationships at large spatial scales are not fully understood. Here we adopt the functional biogeography approach to investigate how the size composition of phytoplankton communities relates to primary production and export production along a broad latitudinal gradient. Using <i>in situ</i> phytoplankton size distribution data and a trait-based model, w ...[more]

PMID: 29794050

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Project description:Biomass distribution among size classes follows a power law where the Log-abundance of taxa scales to Log-size with a slope that responds to environmental abiotic and biotic conditions. The interactions between ecological mechanisms controlling the slope of locally realized size-abundance relationships (SAR) are however not well understood. Here we tested how warming, nutrient levels, and grazing affect the slope of phytoplankton community SARs in decadal time-series from eight Swiss lakes of the peri-alpine region, which underwent environmental forcing due to climate change and oligotrophication. We expected rising temperature to have a negative effect on slope (favoring small phytoplankton), and increasing nutrient levels and grazing pressure to have a positive effect (benefiting large phytoplankton). Using a random forest approach to extract robust patterns from the noisy data, we found that the effects of temperature (direct and indirect through water column stability), nutrient availability (phosphorus and total biomass), and large herbivore (copepods and daphnids) grazing and selectivity on slope were non-linear and interactive. Increasing water temperature or total grazing pressure, and decreasing phosphorus levels, had a positive effect on slope (favoring large phytoplankton, which are predominantly mixotrophic in the lake dataset). Our results therefore showed patterns that were opposite to the expected long-term effects of temperature and nutrient levels, and support a paradigm in which (i) small phototrophic phytoplankton appear to be favored under high nutrients levels, low temperature and low grazing, and (ii) large mixotrophic algae are favored under oligotrophic conditions when temperature and grazing pressure are high. The effects of temperature were stronger under nutrient limitation, and the effects of nutrients and grazing were stronger at high temperature. Our study shows that the phytoplankton local SARs in lakes respond to both the independent and the interactive effects of resources, grazing and water temperature in a complex, unexpected way, and observations from long-term studies can deviate significantly from general theoretical expectations.

Dataset Information

Phytoplankton size diversity and ecosystem function relationships across oceanic regions.

Publications

Phytoplankton size diversity and ecosystem function relationships across oceanic regions.

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