Effect of nutrient supply on cell size evolution of marine phytoplankton

Bibliographic Details
Title: Effect of nutrient supply on cell size evolution of marine phytoplankton
Authors: Lidan Liu, Meng Fan, Yun Kang
Source: Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, Vol 20, Iss 3, Pp 4714-4740 (2023)
Publisher Information: AIMS Press, 2023.
Publication Year: 2023
Collection: LCC:Biotechnology
LCC:Mathematics
Subject Terms: nutrient-phytoplankton model, nutrient supply, ecological reproductive index, cell size evolution, adaptive dynamics, evolutionarily singular strategy, Biotechnology, TP248.13-248.65, Mathematics, QA1-939
More Details: The variation of nutrient supply not only leads to the differences in the phytoplankton biomass and primary productivity but also induces the long-term phenotypic evolution of phytoplankton. It is widely accepted that marine phytoplankton follows Bergmann's Rule and becomes smaller with climate warming. Compared with the direct effect of increasing temperature, the indirect effect via nutrient supply is considered to be an important and dominant factor in the reduction of phytoplankton cell size. In this paper, a size-dependent nutrient-phytoplankton model is developed to explore the effects of nutrient supply on the evolutionary dynamics of functional traits associated with phytoplankton size. The ecological reproductive index is introduced to investigate the impacts of input nitrogen concentration and vertical mixing rate on the persistence of phytoplankton and the distribution of cell size. In addition, by applying the adaptive dynamics theory, we study the relationship between nutrient input and the evolutionary dynamics of phytoplankton. The results show that input nitrogen concentration and vertical mixing rate have significant effects on the cell size evolution of phytoplankton. Specifically, cell size tends to increase with the input nutrient concentration, as does the diversity of cell sizes. In addition, a single-peaked relationship between vertical mixing rate and cell size is observed. When the vertical mixing rate is too low or too high, only small individuals are dominant in the water column. When the vertical mixing rate is moderate, large individuals can coexist with small individuals, so the diversity of phytoplankton is elevated. We predict that reduced intensity of nutrient input due to climate warming will lead to a trend towards smaller cell size and will reduce the diversity of phytoplankton.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1551-0018
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/1551-0018
DOI: 10.3934/mbe.2023218?viewType=HTML
DOI: 10.3934/mbe.2023218
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/059f319dbec24f578bd45bd2011d9992
Accession Number: edsdoj.059f319dbec24f578bd45bd2011d9992
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:15510018
DOI:10.3934/mbe.2023218?viewType=HTML
Published in:Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering
Language:English