The Size Dependence of Phytoplankton Growth Rates: A Trade-Off between Nutrient Uptake and Metabolism

Ward, Ben A.; Marañón, Emilio; Sauterey, Boris; Rault, Jonathan; Claessen, David

doi:10.1086/689992

Cited by 58 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…1C). Although this is in many ways a simplifying assumption about the metabolic relationships that govern D. discoideum, it is consistent with classical growthreproduction tradeoffs [43], [49] and therefore a straightforward first assumption in the absence of experimental data in slime molds and given the diverse range of relationships found in organisms across different scales [50]- [53]. Finally, given the relationship between size and viability/survival, this hypothesized growth-reproduction tradeoff results in an additional reproduction-survival tradeoff between cells that divide and consume the shared pool of resources faster but pay the cost of a decreased survival (for solitary cells) or viability (for spores), and cells that divide more slowly but have an increased survival or viability (Fig.…”

Section: Life History Traitssupporting

confidence: 69%

Seasonality can induce coexistence of multiple bet-hedging strategies in Dictyostelium discoideum via storage effect

Martínez-García

Tarnita

2017

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum has been recently suggested as an example of bet-hedging in microbes. In the presence of resources, amoebae reproduce as unicellular organisms. Resource depletion, however, leads to a starvation phase in which the population splits between aggregators, which form a fruiting body made of a stalk and resistant spores, and non-aggregators, which remain as vegetative cells. Spores are favored when starvation periods are long, but vegetative cells can exploit resources in environments where food replenishes quickly. The investment in aggregators versus non-aggregators can therefore be understood as a bet-hedging strategy that evolves in response to stochastic starvation times. A genotype (or strategy) is defined by the balance between each type of cells. In this framework, if the ecological conditions on a patch are defined in terms of the mean starvation time (i.e. time between the onset of starvation and the arrival of a new food pulse), a single genotype dominates each environment, which is inconsistent with the huge genetic diversity observed in nature. Here we investigate whether seasonality, represented by a periodic, wetdry alternation in the mean starvation times, allows the coexistence of several strategies in a single patch. We study this question in a non-spatial (well-mixed) setting in which different strains compete for a common pool of resources over a sequence of growth-starvation cycles. We find that seasonality induces a temporal storage effect that can promote the stable coexistence of multiple genotypes. Two conditions need to be met in our model. First, there has to be a temporal niche partitioning (two well-differentiated habitats within the year), which requires not only different mean starvation times between seasons but also low variance within each season. Second, each season's well-adapted strain has to grow and create a large enough population that permits its survival during the subsequent unfavorable season, which requires the number of growth-starvation cycles within each season to be sufficiently large. These conditions allow the coexistence of two bet-hedging strategies. Additional tradeoffs among life-history traits can expand the range of coexistence and increase the number of coexisting strategies, contributing towards explaining the genetic diversity observed in D. discoideum. Although focused on this cellular slime mold, our results are general and may be easily extended to other microbes.3

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Section: Life History Traitssupporting

confidence: 69%

Seasonality can induce coexistence of multiple bet-hedging strategies in Dictyostelium discoideum via storage effect

Martínez-García

Tarnita

2017

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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“…This unimodal distribution has been observed (e.g. Raven 1994;Bec et al 2008;Finkel et al 2010;Maranon et al 2013;Sommer et al 2017) and explained as a tradeoff between replenishing cell quotas versus synthesizing new biomass (Verdy et al, 2009;Ward et al 2017). There are also specific differences between functional groups in cell elemental stoichiometry, and palatability to grazers (diatoms and coccolithophores, with their hard surface covering deter grazers, see e.g.…”

Section: Numerical Modelmentioning

confidence: 88%

Dimensions of Marine Phytoplankton Diversity

Dutkiewicz¹,

Cermeño²,

Jahn³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> 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 environmental factors (e.g. latitude, temperature, 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 a disparate combinations of drivers: the supply rate of the limiting resource, the imbalance in different resource supplies relative to competing phytoplanktons&#8217; 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 theory/model exploration to infer the controls on the diversity patterns derived from field observations in meridional transects of the Atlantic and to explain why different taxa and size classes have differing patterns. These results suggest that it is unlikely that any single or even combination of environmental variables will be able to explain patterns of diversity.</p>

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“…Such mechanistic insights may therefore allow the identification of generalities governing the temperature dependencies and sensitivities of species' resource requirement. Efforts to merge metabolic theory with resource competition theory (Ward et al 2017) can improve a general understanding of the environmental dependence of community dynamics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature‐dependence of minimum resource requirements alters competitive hierarchies in phytoplankton

Lewington‐Pearce

Narwani

Thomas

et al. 2019

Oikos

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Resource competition theory is a conceptual framework that provides mechanistic insights into competition and community assembly of species with different resource requirements. However, there has been little exploration of how resource requirements depend on other environmental factors, including temperature. Changes in resource requirements as influenced by environmental temperature would imply that climate warming can alter the outcomes of competition and community assembly. We experimentally demonstrate that environmental temperature alters the minimum light and nitrogen requirements – as well as other growth parameters – of six widespread phytoplankton species from distinct taxonomic groups. We found that species require the most nitrogen at the highest temperatures while light requirements tend to be lowest at intermediate temperatures, although there are substantial interspecific differences in the exact shape of this relationship. We also experimentally parameterize two competition models, which we use to illustrate how temperature, through its effects on species’ traits, alters competitive hierarchies in multispecies assemblages, determining community dynamics. Developing a mechanistic understanding of how temperature influences the ability to compete for limiting resources is a critical step towards improving forecasts of community dynamics under climate warming.

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The Size Dependence of Phytoplankton Growth Rates: A Trade-Off between Nutrient Uptake and Metabolism

Cited by 58 publications

References 30 publications

Seasonality can induce coexistence of multiple bet-hedging strategies in Dictyostelium discoideum via storage effect

Seasonality can induce coexistence of multiple bet-hedging strategies in Dictyostelium discoideum via storage effect

Dimensions of Marine Phytoplankton Diversity

Temperature‐dependence of minimum resource requirements alters competitive hierarchies in phytoplankton

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