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      Phytoplankton competition in deep biomass maximum

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          Abstract

          Resource competition in heterogeneous environments is still an unresolved problem of theoretical ecology. In this article I analyze competition between two phytoplankton species in a deep water column, where the distributions of main resources (light and a limiting nutrient) have opposing gradients and co-limitation by both resources causes a deep biomass maximum. Assuming that the species have a trade-off in resource requirements and the water column is weakly mixed, I apply the invasion threshold analysis (Ryabov and Blasius 2011) to determine relations between environmental conditions and phytoplankton composition. Although species deplete resources in the interior of the water column, the resource levels at the bottom and surface remain high. As a result, the slope of resources gradients becomes a new crucial factor which, rather than the local resource values, determines the outcome of competition. The value of resource gradients nonlinearly depend on the density of consumers. This leads to complex relationships between environmental parameters and species composition. In particular, it is shown that an increase of both the incident light intensity or bottom nutrient concentrations favors the best light competitors, while an increase of the turbulent mixing or background turbidity favors the best nutrient competitors. These results might be important for prediction of species composition in deep ocean.

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          Most cited references29

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          Climate change: a catalyst for global expansion of harmful cyanobacterial blooms.

          Cyanobacteria are the Earth's oldest known oxygen-evolving photosynthetic microorganisms, and they have had major impacts on shaping our current atmosphere and biosphere. Their long evolutionary history has enabled cyanobacteria to develop survival strategies and persist as important primary producers during numerous geochemical and climatic changes that have taken place on Earth during the past 3.5 billion years. Today, some cyanobacterial species form massive surface growths or 'blooms' that produce toxins, cause oxygen depletion and alter food webs, posing a major threat to drinking and irrigation water supplies, fishing and recreational use of surface waters worldwide. These harmful cyanobacteria can take advantage of anthropogenically induced nutrient over-enrichment (eutrophication), and hydrologic modifications (water withdrawal, reservoir construction). Here, we review recent studies revealing that regional and global climatic change may benefit various species of harmful cyanobacteria by increasing their growth rates, dominance, persistence, geographic distributions and activity. Future climatic change scenarios predict rising temperatures, enhanced vertical stratification of aquatic ecosystems, and alterations in seasonal and interannual weather patterns (including droughts, storms, floods); these changes all favour harmful cyanobacterial blooms in eutrophic waters. Therefore, current mitigation and water management strategies, which are largely based on nutrient input and hydrologic controls, must also accommodate the environmental effects of global warming. © 2009 Society for Applied Microbiology and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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            Niche partitioning among Prochlorococcus ecotypes along ocean-scale environmental gradients.

            Prochlorococcus is the numerically dominant phytoplankter in the oligotrophic oceans, accounting for up to half of the photosynthetic biomass and production in some regions. Here, we describe how the abundance of six known ecotypes, which have small subunit ribosomal RNA sequences that differ by less than 3%, changed along local and basin-wide environmental gradients in the Atlantic Ocean. Temperature was significantly correlated with shifts in ecotype abundance, and laboratory experiments confirmed different temperature optima and tolerance ranges for cultured strains. Light, nutrients, and competitor abundances also appeared to play a role in shaping different distributions.
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              Diatoms and the ocean carbon cycle.

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                25 January 2012
                Article
                10.1007/s12080-012-0158-0
                1201.5211
                27187b11-e077-4280-b8df-614b9452f9b8

                http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

                History
                Custom metadata
                13 pages, 7 figures; Theoretical Ecology 2012
                q-bio.PE nlin.AO nlin.PS

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