Environmentally induced functional shifts in phytoplankton and their potential consequences for ecosystem functioning

Julien Di Pane, Karen Helen Wiltshire, Matthew McLean, Maarten Boersma, Cédric Léo Meunier

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Phytoplanktonic organisms are particularly sensitive to environmental change, and, as they represent a direct link between abiotic and biotic compartments within the marine food web, changes in the functional structure of phytoplankton communities can result in profound impacts on ecosystem functioning. Using a trait-based approach, we examined changes in the functional structure of the southern North Sea phytoplankton over the past five decades in relation to environmental conditions. We identified a shift in functional structure between 1998 and 2004 which coincides with a pronounced increase in diatom and decrease in dinoflagellate abundances, and we provide a mechanistic explanation for this taxonomic change. Early in the 2000s, the phytoplankton functional structure shifted from slow growing, autumn blooming, mixotrophic organisms, towards earlier blooming and faster-growing microalgae. Warming and decreasing dissolved phosphorus concentrations were linked to this rapid reorganization of the functional structure. We identified a potential link between this shift and dissolved nutrient concentrations, and we hypothesise that organisms blooming early and displaying high growth rates efficiently take up nutrients which then are no longer available to late bloomers. Moreover, we identified that the above-mentioned functional change may have bottom-up consequences, through a food quality-driven negative influence on copepod abundances. Overall, our study highlights that, by altering the phytoplankton functional composition, global and regional changes may have profound long-term impacts on coastal ecosystems, impacting both food-web structure and biogeochemical cycles.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2804-2819
Number of pages16
JournalGlobal Change Biology
Volume28
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
JDP and CLM were supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF grant no. 01LN1702A). MB was supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG), with the Priority Programme Dynatrait. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Ecology
  • General Environmental Science

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Journal Article

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