Increasing importance of small phytoplankton in a warmer ocean

By X. Morán, Á. López-Urrutia, Alejandra Calvo-Díaz, William K. W. Li. 2010

587 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The macroecological relationships among marine phytoplankton total cell density, community size structure and temperature have lacked a theoretical explanation. The tiniest members of this planktonic group comprise cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae smaller than 2 μm in diameter, collectively known as picophytoplankton. We combine here two ecological rules, the temperature–size relationship with the allometric size‐scaling of population abundance to explain a remarkably consistent pattern of increasing picophytoplankton biomass with temperature over the −0.6 to 22 °C range in a merged dataset obtained in the eastern and western temperate North Atlantic Ocean across a diverse range of environmental conditions. Our results show that temperature alone was able to explain 73% of the variance in the relative contribution of small cells to total phytoplankton biomass regardless of differences in trophic status or inorganic nutrient loading. Our analysis predicts a gradual shift toward smaller primary producers in a warmer ocean. Because the fate of photosynthesized organic carbon largely depends on phytoplankton size, we anticipate future alterations in the functioning of oceanic ecosystems.

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f67c212065f9ca978223ff3ee26cd7787f34b63e

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Citations in the corpus

Ecological Networks in a Changing Climate (2010, background): “Moran et al. (2010) have recently combined allometric MN scaling relationships of such individual-based size distributions with the temperaturesize rule to predict an increased prevalence of very small picophytoplankton within the overall marine phytoplankton assemblage as temperatures rise.”
Temperature dependency of metabolic rates in the upper ocean: A positive feedback to global climate change? (2018, background): “may become more dominant if the adjustment of phytoplankton composition is consistent over time as it is over space (Moran et al., 2010).”
Contrasting effects of ocean acidification on the microbial food web under different trophic conditions (2016, background): “Temperature rises will also promote small-sized organisms (Morán et al., 2009).”
Synechococcus in the Atlantic Gateway to the Arctic Ocean (2016, background): “In marine systems, small phytoplankton are expected to become relatively more abundant with warming (Morán et al., 2010; Tremblay et al., 2012) and it has been speculated that the warming of the Arctic Ocean could lead to a shift from picoeukaryotes to picocyanobacteria, with implications for food…”
Phytoplankton as Key Mediators of the Biological Carbon Pump: Their Responses to a Changing Climate (2018, background): “Several studies predict a shift towards smaller primary producers in a warmer ocean [55,60].”
The Temperature Dependence of the Carbon Cycle in Aquatic Ecosystems (2010, background): “Similarly, a study in the open ocean has recently demonstrated that in the mesocosm experiment, total phytoplankton biomass tends to be lower in warmer, lower latitude regions (Moran et al. , 2010).”
Global biogeochemical impacts of phytoplankton: a trait‐based perspective (2015, background): “However, as stratification intensifies and nutrient-limited ocean regions expand with global change (Behrenfeld et al. 2006; Halpern et al. 2008; Irwin & Oliver 2009), smaller-celled species and groups and nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria will be competitively favoured and increase in abundance at the ”
Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change (2019, unknown): “Ocean warming is thought to favour smaller plankton types over larger ones, changing biogeochemical fluxes such as particle export 121 .”
Phytoplankton growth and the interaction of light and temperature: A synthesis at the species and community level (2016, result): “Whether temperature has important direct effects on phytoplankton growth and community size structure in the ocean is currently debated (Mor an et al. 2010; Mara~n on et al. 2012, 2014; Regaudie-de-Goux and Duarte 2012), and conflicting results may in part be driven by interactions between…”
Temperature dependence of planktonic metabolism in the ocean (2012, background): “…which channel most of their production to support heterotrophic respiration, has been associated with both high temperature and low nutrient supply 7 of 10 [Agawin et al., 2000], with the implication that the dominance of picoautotrophs should increase with ocean warming [Morán et al., 2010].”