Inter-specific scaling of phytoplankton production and cell size in the field

This study tests the hypothesis that the interspecific scaling of phytoplankton production and cell size in the field follows the 3 -power scaling law. Published data of cell size and in situ, cellspecific carbon production rates by single phytoplankton species, collected in surface waters of lakes, rivers, estuaries and oceans, are reviewed. Across more than nine orders of magnitude in cell volume, 98% of the variability in carbon production rates was explained by cell size. The slope (b) in the log‐log relationship between carbon production rate and cell volume did not differ significantly from 1, either for diatoms (b = 1.01) or for dinoflagellates (b = 0.89). For all phytoplankton species considered together, which included also cyanobacteria and haptophytes, b took a value of 0.91, which is significantly higher than 3 . The observed nearly isometric scaling relationships between production rate and cell volume suggest that there is no relationship between phytoplankton growth rate and cell size. The present analysis confirms recent evidence showing that phytoplankton metabolism in natural conditions does not follow the 3 -power scaling rule. It is argued that allometric models of plankton growth and metabolism should incorporate scaling parameters measured in situ on natural phytoplankton assemblages, rather than those obtained in the laboratory with monospecific cultures.

[1]  Stanford B. Hooker,et al.  Photoacclimation and nutrient-based model of light-saturated photosynthesis for quantifying oceanic primary production , 2002 .

[2]  R. Riegman,et al.  Effect of nitrogen source on the size distribution within marine phytoplankton populations , 1994 .

[3]  Amos Maritan,et al.  Size and form in efficient transportation networks , 1999, Nature.

[4]  Dongyan Liu,et al.  Geometric models for calculating cell biovolume and surface area for phytoplankton , 2003 .

[5]  Susanne Menden-Deuer,et al.  Carbon to volume relationships for dinoflagellates, diatoms, and other protist plankton , 2000 .

[6]  Paul J. Harrison,et al.  Estimating carbon, nitrogen, protein, and chlorophyll a from volume in marine phytoplankton , 1994 .

[7]  K J Niklas,et al.  Invariant scaling relationships for interspecific plant biomass production rates and body size , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[8]  Geoffrey B. West,et al.  Effects of Body Size and Temperature on Population Growth , 2004, The American Naturalist.

[9]  James H. Brown,et al.  Allometric scaling of plant energetics and population density , 1998, Nature.

[10]  James H. Brown,et al.  Toward a metabolic theory of ecology , 2004 .

[11]  David J. S. Montagnes,et al.  Effect of temperature on diatom volume, growth rate, and carbon and nitrogen content: Reconsidering some paradigms , 2001 .

[12]  M. Furnas.  In situ growth rates of marine phytoplankton: approaches to measurement, community and species growth rates , 1990 .

[13]  Marcel Babin,et al.  Toward a taxon‐specific parameterization of bio‐optical models of primary production: A case study in the North Atlantic , 2005 .

[14]  Thomas Kiørboe,et al.  Turbulence, Phytoplankton Cell Size, and the Structure of Pelagic Food Webs , 1993 .

[15]  H. Seliger,et al.  Liquid scintillation counting for 14C uptake of single algal cells isolated from natural samples , 1981 .

[16]  A. Shiomoto,et al.  Light utilization efficiency of size-fractionated phytoplankton in the subarctic Pacific, spring and summer 1999: high efficiency of large-sized diatom , 2002 .

[17]  Z. Finkel.  Light absorption and size scaling of light‐limited metabolism in marine diatoms , 2001 .

[18]  A. Irwin,et al.  Resource limitation alters the 3/4 size scaling of metabolic rates in phytoplankton , 2004 .

[19]  C. Hemelrijk,et al.  Problems of allometric scaling analysis: examples from mammalian reproductive biology , 2005, Journal of Experimental Biology.

[20]  R. Peters.  The Ecological Implications of Body Size , 1983 .

[21]  S. Taguchi.  RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHOTOSYNTHESIS AND CELL SIZE OF MARINE DIATOMS 1 2 , 1976 .

[22]  S. Chisholm,et al.  The calculation of in situ growth rates of phytoplankton populations from fractions of cells undergoing mitosis: A clarification1 , 1982 .

[23]  F. Rassoulzadegan,et al.  Food-web mediated export of biogenic carbon in oceans: hydrodynamic control , 1996 .

[24]  D. Harbour,et al.  Invariant scaling of phytoplankton abundance and cell size in contrasting marine environments. , 2006, Ecology letters.

[25]  James H. Brown,et al.  The origin of allometric scaling laws in biology from genomes to ecosystems: towards a quantitative unifying theory of biological structure and organization , 2005, Journal of Experimental Biology.

[26]  John A. Raven,et al.  The twelfth Tansley Lecture. Small is beautiful: the picophytoplankton , 1998 .

[27]  U. Sommer.  Maximal growth rates of Antarctic phytoplankton: Only weak dependence on cell size , 1989 .

[28]  S. Mitrovic,et al.  Unusual allometry between in situ growth of freshwater phytoplankton under static and fluctuating light environments: possible implications for dominance , 2003 .

[29]  William K. W. Li.  Primary production of prochlorophytes, cyanobacteria, and eucaryotic ultraphytoplankton: Measurements from flow cytometric sorting , 1994 .

[30]  M. Kleiber.  Body size and metabolic rate. , 1947, Physiological reviews.

[31]  R. Peters,et al.  The allometry of algal respiration , 1995 .

[32]  N. Welschmeyer,et al.  Pigment-specific rates of phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing in the open subarctic Pacific Ocean , 1991 .

[33]  Geoffrey B. West,et al.  The predominance of quarter-power scaling in biology , 2004 .

[34]  Paul G. Falkowski,et al.  Primary Productivity and Biogeochemical Cycles in the Sea , 1992 .

[35]  E. Marañón,et al.  Large-sized phytoplankton sustain higher carbon-specific photosynthesis than smaller cells in a coastal eutrophic ecosystem , 2005 .

[36]  E. Carpenter,et al.  Species-specific phytoplankton growth rates via diel DNA synthesis cycles. 1. Concept of the method , 1988 .

[37]  K. Banse.  Cell volumes, maximal growth rates of unicellular algae and ciliates, and the role of ciliates in the marine pelagial1,2 , 1982 .

[38]  M. Estrada,et al.  Estimating the carbon flux through main phytoplankton groups in the northwestern Mediterranean , 2005 .

[39]  I. Berman‐Frank,et al.  Balanced Growth in Aquatic Plants: Myth or Reality? , 1999 .

[40]  E. Carpenter,et al.  Species-specific phytoplankton growth rates via diel DNA synthesis cycles. V. Application to natural populations in Long Island Sound , 1991 .

[41]  Xabier Irigoien,et al.  Scaling the metabolic balance of the oceans. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[42]  R. Harris,et al.  Scaling of phytoplankton photosynthesis and cell size in the ocean , 2007 .

[43]  D. Blasco,et al.  SIZE DEPENDENCE OF GROWTH RATE, RESPIRATORY ELECTRON TRANSPORT SYSTEM ACTIVITY, AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION IN MARINE DIATOMS IN THE LABORATORY 1 , 1982 .

[44]  L. Øvreås,et al.  Use of non‐limiting substrates to increase size; a generic strategy to simultaneously optimize uptake and minimize predation in pelagic osmotrophs? , 2005 .

[45]  E. Marañón,et al.  Size dependence of coastal phytoplankton photosynthesis under vertical mixing conditions , 2005 .

[46]  James H. Brown,et al.  A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology , 1997, Science.

[47]  P. Falkowski,et al.  Scaling-up from nutrient physiology to the size-structure of phytoplankton communities , 2006 .