Dimensions of marine phytoplankton diversity
Name
bg-17-609-2020.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
9.96 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
259bd46f4015628a30b15ca9b3c69b4f
Author(s)
Dutkiewicz, Stephanie
Cermeno, Pedro
Jahn, Oliver
Follows, Michael J
Hickman, Anna E.
Taniguchi, Darcy A. A.
Ward, Ben
Date Issued
February 2020
Journal
Biogeosciences
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Citation
Dutkiewicz, Stephanie et al. "Dimensions of marine phytoplankton diversity." Biogeosciences 17, 3 (February 2020): 609–634 © 2020 Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Biodiversity of phytoplankton is important for ecosystem stability and marine biogeochemistry. However, the large-scale patterns of diversity are not well understood and are often poorly characterized in terms of statistical relationships with factors such as latitude, temperature and productivity. Here we use ecological theory and a global trait-based ecosystem model to provide mechanistic understanding of patterns of phytoplankton diversity. Our study suggests that phytoplankton diversity across three dimensions of trait space (size, biogeochemical function and thermal tolerance) is controlled by disparate combinations of drivers: the supply rate of the limiting resource, the imbalance in different resource supplies relative to competing phytoplankton demands, size-selective grazing and transport by the moving ocean. Using sensitivity studies we show that each dimension of diversity is controlled by different drivers. Models including only one (or two) of the trait dimensions will have different patterns of diversity than one which incorporates another trait dimension. We use the results of our model exploration to infer the controls on the diversity patterns derived from field observations along meridional transects in the Atlantic and to explain why different taxa and size classes have differing patterns.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-609-2020
