Intermittency in processing explains the diversity and shape of functional grazing responses

Can Top-Down Controls Expand the Ecological Niche of Marine N2 Fixers?

The ability of marine diazotrophs to fix dinitrogen gas (N₂) is one of the most influential yet enigmatic processes in the ocean. With their activity diazotrophs support biological production by fixing about 100–200 Tg N/year and turning otherwise unavailable dinitrogen into bioavailable nitrogen (N), an essential limiting nutrient. Despite their important role, the factors that control the distribution of diazotrophs and their ability to fix N₂ are not fully elucidated. We discuss insights that can be gained from the emerging picture of a wide geographical distribution of marine diazotrophs and provide a critical assessment of environmental (bottom-up) versus trophic (top-down) controls. We expand a simplified theoretical framework to understand how top-down control affects competition for resources that determine ecological niches. Selective mortality, mediated by grazing or viral-lysis, on non-fixing phytoplankton is identified as a critical process that can broaden the ability of diazotrophs to compete for resources in top-down controlled systems and explain an expanded ecological niche for diazotrophs. Our simplified analysis predicts a larger importance of top-down control on competition patterns as resource levels increase. As grazing controls the faster growing phytoplankton, coexistence of the slower growing diazotrophs can be established. However, these predictions require corroboration by experimental and field data, together with the identification of specific traits of organisms and associated trade-offs related to selective top-down control. Elucidation of these factors could greatly improve our predictive capability for patterns and rates of marine N₂ fixation. The susceptibility of this key biogeochemical process to future changes may not only be determined by changes in environmental conditions but also via changes in the ecological interactions.

Dense Dwarfs versus Gelatinous Giants: The Trade-Offs and Physiological Limits Determining the Body Plan of Planktonic Filter Feeders

Most marine plankton have a high energy (carbon) density, but some are gelatinous with approximately 100 times more watery bodies. How do those distinctly different body plans emerge, and what are the trade-offs? We address this question by modeling the energy budget of planktonic filter feeders across life-forms, from micron-sized unicellular microbes such as choanoflagellates to centimeter-sized gelatinous tunicates such as salps. We find two equally successful strategies, one being small with high energy density (dense dwarf) and the other being large with low energy density (gelatinous giant). The constraint that forces large-but not small-filter feeders to be gelatinous is identified as a lower limit to the size-specific filter area, below which the energy costs lead to starvation. A further limit is found from the maximum size-specific motor force that restricts the access to optimum strategies. The quantified constraints are discussed in the context of other resource-acquisition strategies. We argue that interception feeding strategies can be accessed by large organisms only if they are gelatinous. On the other hand, organisms that use remote prey sensing do not need to be gelatinous, even if they are large.