The Evolution of Modern Eukaryotic Phytoplankton

By Paul G. Falkowski, M. Katz, Andrew H. Knoll, Antonietta Quigg, J. Raven, O. Schofield, F. Taylor. Science, 2004

1,566 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The community structure and ecological function of contemporary marine ecosystems are critically dependent on eukaryotic phytoplankton. Although numerically inferior to cyanobacteria, these organisms are responsible for the majority of the flux of organic matter to higher trophic levels and the ocean interior. Photosynthetic eukaryotes evolved more than 1.5 billion years ago in the Proterozoic oceans. However, it was not until the Mesozoic Era (251 to 65 million years ago) that the three principal phytoplankton clades that would come to dominate the modern seas rose to ecological prominence. In contrast to their pioneering predecessors, the dinoflagellates, coccolithophores, and diatoms all contain plastids derived from an ancestral red alga by secondary symbiosis. Here we examine the geological, geochemical, and biological processes that contributed to the rise of these three, distantly related, phytoplankton groups.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Ecology, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b81c3cdb168db666fc1b8ea43cc8c387f345a206

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Citations in the corpus

Exploring nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses in Tara Oceans microbial metagenomes (2013, background): “Although less numerous than bacteria, eukaryotes often represent the bulk of plankton biomass and mediate important biogeochemical and food web processes (Falkowski et al., 2004, Massana, 2011).”
CO2 concentrating mechanisms in algae: mechanisms, environmental modulation, and evolution. (2005, neutral): “, photosynthetic dinoflagellates) (47).”
The terrestrial biota prior to the origin of land plants (embryophytes): a review of the evidence (2015, background): “Most workers assert that the chlorophytes are marine in origin (Falkowski et al. 2004; Becker and Marin 2009), but there is little in the way of direct fossil evidence to confirm this.”
A comparative and evolutionary approach to oxidative stress in fish: A review (2017, neutral): “…the ability to photosynthesize (Nisbet & Sleep, 2001), after which the abundance of carbon dioxide and water as reductants, along with the availability of sunlight, greatly increased the production of oxygen, leading to the evolution of other photosynthetic organisms (Falkowski et al., 2004).”
Global biogeochemical impacts of phytoplankton: a trait‐based perspective (2015, background): “While both green and red superfamilies primarily use chlorophyll a, the former also possesses chlorophyll b, while the latter uses chlorophyll c and several accessory pigments that absorb blue and green wavelengths (Falkowski et al. 2004; Katz et al. 2004).”
Ecological niches of open ocean phytoplankton taxa (2015, background): “Phytoplankton are highly diverse, with representatives playing various roles in biogeochemistry (Falkowski et al. 2004; Le Qu er e et al. 2005) and showing different distribution patterns (Boyd et al.”
Attached Algae: The Cryptic Base of Inverted Trophic Pyramids in Freshwaters (2017, background): “Algae in the lineage arising from the second incorporation of endosymbionts synthesize the longer chain EFAs de novo (Falkowski et al. 2004).”
Pelagic functional group modeling: Progress, challenges and prospects (2006, neutral): “Falkowski et al. (2004) have suggested that the increase may be related to biologically catalyzed silicate weathering and runoff associated with the radiation of silica-rich terrestrial grasses, and further that the stimulation of export production by diatoms may have created a positive feedback…”
Evolutionary Trajectories and Biogeochemical Impacts of Marine Eukaryotic Phytoplankton (2004, background): “The ecological dominance of diatoms under certain sporadic mixing conditions suggests that their long-term success in the Cenozoic probably can be attributed in part to an increase in event-scale turbulent energy dissipation in the upper ocean (Falkowski et al. 2004a).”
Transcriptional responses of three model diatoms to nitrate limitation of growth (2014, background): “Globally, diatoms contribute an estimated 40% to marine primary production (Falkowski et al., 2004).”