Role of infochemical mediated zooplankton grazing in a phytoplankton competition model

Lewis, Nicola D.; Breckels, Mark N.; Steinke, Michael; Codling, Edward A.

doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2012.10.003

Cited by 25 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…5]. However, the role of predator attraction to phytoplankton exudates has received little attention [28]. Here we consider phytoplankton-derived dimethylsulphide (DMS) as an example of one of potentially many infochemicals that may mediate interactions over three trophic levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multitrophic Interactions in the Sea: Assessing the Effect of Infochemical-Mediated Foraging in a 1-d Spatial Model

Lewis

Морозов

Breckels

et al. 2013

Math. Model. Nat. Phenom.

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Abstract. The release of chemicals following herbivore grazing on primary producers may provide feeding cues to carnivorous predators, thereby promoting multitrophic interactions. In particular, chemicals released following grazing on phytoplankton by microzooplankton herbivores have been shown to elicit a behavioural foraging response in carnivorous copepods, which may use this chemical information as a mechanism to locate and remain within biologically productive patches of the ocean. In this paper, we use a 1D spatial reaction-diffusion model to simulate a tri-trophic planktonic system in the water column, where predation at the top trophic level (copepods) is affected by infochemicals released by the primary producers forming the bottom trophic level. The effect of the infochemical-mediated predation is investigated by comparing the case where copepods forage randomly to the case where copepods adjust their vertical position to follow the distribution of grazing-induced chemicals. Results indicate that utilization of infochemicals for foraging provides fitness benefits to copepods and stabilizes the system at high nutrient load, whilst also forming a possible mechanism for phytoplankton bloom formation. We also investigate how the copepod efficiency to respond to infochemicals affects the results, and show that small increases (2%) in the ability of copepods to sense infochemicals can promote their persistence in the system. Finally we argue that effectively employing infochemicals for foraging can be an evolutionarily stable strategy for copepods.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multitrophic Interactions in the Sea: Assessing the Effect of Infochemical-Mediated Foraging in a 1-d Spatial Model

Lewis

Морозов

Breckels

et al. 2013

Math. Model. Nat. Phenom.

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“…The inclusion of an infochemical term in their model had a stabilizing effect on the resultant population dynamics and acted to promote phytoplankton bloom formation [24]. Extensions of this work have considered phytoplankton competition [25] and vertical heterogeneity [26]. For simplicity, these models did not directly consider nutrient limitation and instead used the logistic growth equation with a fixed carrying capacity to constrain the predator-free phytoplankton abundance, and subsequently explored how top-down control via predation and grazing affects the phytoplankton ability to bloom.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Note that for the scaling and results (23)- (25) and 26- (28), the corresponding value Z are given by the second expression in (10). Shown in Fig.…”

Section: Trivial Equilibria (With Z E = 0)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The copepod predation rate on microzooplankton is increased by a multiplicative factor 1 + (ξgP M )/(k 1 + P ), which represents an increase in copepod foraging efficiency through chemoreception proportional to the microzooplankton grazing rate on phytoplankton. The non-dimensional parameter ξ represents how an increase in the release of grazing-induced infochemicals corresponds to an increase in copepod predation [24,25]. Microzooplankton convert grazed phytoplankton into new biomass with efficiency γ, while copepods convert predated microzooplankton into new biomass with efficiency .…”

Section: Full Four-species Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plots of (24)-(25) and(27)-(28) and their corresponding Ze(10) showing the asymptotic behavior of the bifurcation curves as µ → 0. The solid and dashed lines show the curve obtained from scaling(23) and(26), respectively, together with the scaling(20).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Bottom-up and top-down control in a multitrophic system: the role of nutrient limitation and infochemical-mediated predation in a plankton food-web model

Walker

Susanto

Steinke

et al. 2019

Communication in Biomathematical Sciences

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Chemicals released following herbivore grazing on primary producers can promote multitrophic interactions by influencing the foraging behaviour of higher order predators. In particular, chemicals released during microzooplankton grazing on phytoplankton can act as infochemical cues that elicit foraging responses and improve search efficiency in carnivorous copepods. Models investigating such infochemical-mediated multitrophic interactions in the plankton are typically based on top-down control, where phytoplankton concentrations are controlled through predation and grazing from higher trophic levels. However, in marine environments nutrient limitation is an important factor that influences a food-web from below, and earlier models of this system only indirectly account for this by assuming predator-free growth is logistic with a fixed carrying capacity. Here we consider the dynamics of infochemical-mediated interactions in a marine system where nutrient limitation is modelled directly through an extended NPZ-style model. We show the one-parameter bifurcation behavior of the top-down model to change when the total nutrient availability is changed, and hence demonstrate phytoplankton bloom formation to be a function of both top-down and bottom-up processes.

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Trophic mediation and ecosystem stability: An assessment using qualitative network models

Ward

Melbourne‐Thomas

Johnson

et al. 2021

Limnology & Oceanography

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Nontrophic interactions can contribute to negative and positive feedbacks within a community, thus affecting likelihood of regime shifts; however, assessing the nature and importance of these effects in a network remains challenging, especially for pelagic ecosystems. Here, we present a qualitative modeling approach for assessing the importance of different effects and resultant feedbacks for community stability, using a Southern Ocean example. A potentially important positive feedback in the Southern Ocean ecosystem involves production of a chemical cue, dimethyl sulfide (DMS), by some phytoplankton. Production of DMS can promote phytoplankton growth by attracting predators of phytoplankton-grazers, and nutrients released as feces from those predators help fertilize the water column. We explored how uncertainties in the nature of this feedback affect community stability in a set of small, community models. We found that stability varied substantially depending on how the community was modeled, but that the interactions most important for determining stability were consistent across all models. Model stability was sensitive to the strength of phytoplankton competition, controls on phytoplankton, DMS production and release, and predator attraction to DMS, suggesting that the community could be destabilized by perturbation affecting these interactions. Incorporating DMS-mediated feedbacks into a larger Southern Ocean network had a moderate impact on stability characteristics and altered the trophic level at which the system would be most vulnerable to perturbation.

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Role of infochemical mediated zooplankton grazing in a phytoplankton competition model

Cited by 25 publications

References 52 publications

Multitrophic Interactions in the Sea: Assessing the Effect of Infochemical-Mediated Foraging in a 1-d Spatial Model

Multitrophic Interactions in the Sea: Assessing the Effect of Infochemical-Mediated Foraging in a 1-d Spatial Model

Bottom-up and top-down control in a multitrophic system: the role of nutrient limitation and infochemical-mediated predation in a plankton food-web model

Trophic mediation and ecosystem stability: An assessment using qualitative network models

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