Seed banks can help to maintain the diversity of interacting phytoplankton species

Abstract

Seed formation is part of the reproductive cycle, leading to the accumulation of resistance stages that can withstand harsh environmental conditions for long periods of time. At the community level, multiple species with such long-lasting life stages can be more likely to coexist. While the implications of this process for biodiversity have been studied in terrestrial plants, seed banks are usually neglected in phytoplankton multispecies dynamic models, in spite of widespread empirical evidence for such seed (or rather cyst) banks. In this study, we build a metacommunity model of interacting phytoplankton species with a cyst bank.The model is parameterized with empirically-driven growth rate functions and field-based interaction estimates, which include both facilitative and competitive interactions. Exchanges between compartments (coastal pelagic cells, coastal cysts on the seabed, and open ocean pelagic cells) are controlled by hydrodynamical parameters to which the sensitivity of the model is assessed. We consider two models, i.e., with and without a saturating effect of the interactions on the growth rates. Our results are consistent between models, and show that a cyst bank allows to maintain all species in the community over 30 years. Indeed, a fraction of the species are vulnerable to extinction at specific times within the year, but this process is buffered by their survival in the coastal cyst bank. We thus highlight the potential role of the cyst bank in the recurrent re-invasion of the coastal community, and of coastal environments in re-seeding oceanic regions. Moreover, the cyst bank enables populations to tolerate stronger interactions within the community as well as more severe changes in the environment, such as those predicted within a climate change context. Our study therefore shows how a cyst stage may help phytoplanktonic diversity maintenance.