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Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs / SUZANA LELES

Swansea University Author: SUZANA LELES

DOI (Published version): 10.23889/Suthesis.55181

Abstract

Protist plankton contribute to both primary and secondary production in the oceans fuelling life within pelagic food webs. Despite commonly perceived as ‘phytoplankton’ or ‘zooplankton’, most protist plankton are mixotrophs through the combination of photoautotrophy and phagotrophy within a single c...

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Published: 2019
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
Supervisor: Flynn, Kevin J. ; Mitra, Aditee
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa55181
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first_indexed 2020-09-15T16:03:44Z
last_indexed 2020-09-16T03:19:34Z
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spelling 2020-09-15T17:16:07.6755786 v2 55181 2020-09-15 Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs 9bcdc762934f8e8dbc729ddee16d4ac2 SUZANA LELES SUZANA LELES true false 2020-09-15 Protist plankton contribute to both primary and secondary production in the oceans fuelling life within pelagic food webs. Despite commonly perceived as ‘phytoplankton’ or ‘zooplankton’, most protist plankton are mixotrophs through the combination of photoautotrophy and phagotrophy within a single cell. Nevertheless, we lack a clear understanding of their biogeography and impact on ecosystem functioning. The aims of this thesis were: i) to investigate the biogeography of mixotrophs according to their functional diversity across oceanic biomes and to evaluate how it relates to environmental variability; ii) to explore the competitive outcomes between mixotrophs and their auto- or hetero- trophic counterparts and the effect of mixotrophy on ecosystem functioning; and iii) to investigate the seasonal succession of protist trophic strategies and the vertical distribution of mixotrophs within a coastal temperate sea. These aims were explored utilizing global databases, long-term monitoring datasets, and numerical models of plankton food webs across different spatio-temporal scales. Mixotrophs were found to be ubiquitous in the global oceans; however, different types displayed different distributions. Among non-constitutive mixotrophs, those that host prey populations dominate within oligotrophic seas while those that steal prey plastids dominate high-biomass systems. In turn, global databases were strongly biased by size, taxonomy, and oceanic biome, failing to represent the importance of smaller constitutive mixotrophs. The modelling studies showed that mixotrophs control nutrient regulation, trophic transfer, and the microbial loop. Size was an important trait determining the success of mixotrophs with an innate capacity for photosynthesis while the specificity of prey from which acquired phototrophs can photosynthesize affected their success. Model and data showed that mixotrophy is a persistent trait over the seasonal cycle and throughout the water column within coastal temperate seas. These findings significantly change our understanding of the functioning of marine food webs and biogeochemical cycling in the oceans, underscoring the need to integrate mixotrophy within marine ecology research. E-Thesis ecology, marine, plankton, mixotrophy, biogeography, ecosystem modelling, functional diversity 11 11 2019 2019-11-11 10.23889/Suthesis.55181 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Flynn, Kevin J. ; Mitra, Aditee Doctoral Ph.D Brazilian government through CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) and the program Science Without Borders 2020-09-15T17:16:07.6755786 2020-09-15T17:00:17.7772449 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences SUZANA LELES 1 55181__18168__3deb13cb12864a829f1eeeb3c7c1819b.pdf Leles_Suzana_G_PhD_Thesis_Final.pdf 2020-09-15T17:12:37.1151333 Output 4045117 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true true English
title Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
spellingShingle Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
SUZANA LELES
title_short Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
title_full Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
title_fullStr Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
title_full_unstemmed Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
title_sort Accounting for mixotrophy within microbial food webs
author_id_str_mv 9bcdc762934f8e8dbc729ddee16d4ac2
author_id_fullname_str_mv 9bcdc762934f8e8dbc729ddee16d4ac2_***_SUZANA LELES
author SUZANA LELES
author2 SUZANA LELES
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2019
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/Suthesis.55181
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description Protist plankton contribute to both primary and secondary production in the oceans fuelling life within pelagic food webs. Despite commonly perceived as ‘phytoplankton’ or ‘zooplankton’, most protist plankton are mixotrophs through the combination of photoautotrophy and phagotrophy within a single cell. Nevertheless, we lack a clear understanding of their biogeography and impact on ecosystem functioning. The aims of this thesis were: i) to investigate the biogeography of mixotrophs according to their functional diversity across oceanic biomes and to evaluate how it relates to environmental variability; ii) to explore the competitive outcomes between mixotrophs and their auto- or hetero- trophic counterparts and the effect of mixotrophy on ecosystem functioning; and iii) to investigate the seasonal succession of protist trophic strategies and the vertical distribution of mixotrophs within a coastal temperate sea. These aims were explored utilizing global databases, long-term monitoring datasets, and numerical models of plankton food webs across different spatio-temporal scales. Mixotrophs were found to be ubiquitous in the global oceans; however, different types displayed different distributions. Among non-constitutive mixotrophs, those that host prey populations dominate within oligotrophic seas while those that steal prey plastids dominate high-biomass systems. In turn, global databases were strongly biased by size, taxonomy, and oceanic biome, failing to represent the importance of smaller constitutive mixotrophs. The modelling studies showed that mixotrophs control nutrient regulation, trophic transfer, and the microbial loop. Size was an important trait determining the success of mixotrophs with an innate capacity for photosynthesis while the specificity of prey from which acquired phototrophs can photosynthesize affected their success. Model and data showed that mixotrophy is a persistent trait over the seasonal cycle and throughout the water column within coastal temperate seas. These findings significantly change our understanding of the functioning of marine food webs and biogeochemical cycling in the oceans, underscoring the need to integrate mixotrophy within marine ecology research.
published_date 2019-11-11T04:09:12Z
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score 11.0127

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