Do phytoplankton communities evolve through a self-regulatory abundance-diversity relationship?

Journal article

A small group of phytoplankton species that produce toxic or allelopathic chemicals has a significant effect on plankton dynamics in marine ecosystems. The species of non-toxic phytoplankton, which are large in number, are affected by the toxin-allelopathy of those species. By analysis of the abundance data of marine phytoplankton collected from the North-West coast of the Bay of Bengal, an empirical relationship between the abundance of the potential toxin-producing species and the species diversity of the non-toxic phytoplankton is formulated. A change-point analysis demonstrates that the diversity of non-toxic phytoplankton increases with the increase of toxic species up to a certain level. However, for a massive increase of the toxin-producing species the diversity of phytoplankton at species level reduces gradually. Following the results, a deterministic relationship between the abundance of toxic phytoplankton and the diversity of non-toxic phytoplankton is developed. The abundance-diversity relationship develops a unimodal pathway through which the abundance of toxic species regulates the diversity of phytoplankton. These results contribute to the current understanding of the coexistence and biodiversity of phytoplankton, the top-down vs. bottom-up debate, and to that of abundance-diversity relationship in marine ecosystems.

Authors: Roy, S

• Journal: Bio Systems
• Volume: 95
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 160-165
• Publication date: 2009-02-01
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2008.10.001
• EISSN: 1872-8324
• ISSN: 0303-2647
• Language: English
• Keywords: Time Factors; Population Dynamics; Marine Biology; Phytoplankton; Ecosystem; Marine Toxins; Biological Evolution; Biodiversity; Indian Ocean; Models, Theoretical; Species Specificity