Kashtan, N., S.E Roggensack, S. Rodrigue, J.W. Thompson, S.J. Biller, A. Coe, H. Ding, P. Marttinen, R. Stocker, M.J. Follows, R. Stepanauskas and S.W. Chisholm (2014) Single cell genomics reveals hundreds of coexisting subpopulations in wild Prochlorococcus, Science, 344(6182), 416-420, doi: 10.1126/science.1248575
Clayton, S., T. Nagai and M.J. Follows (2014), Fine scale phytoplankton community structure across the Kuroshio Front. J. Plankton Res., 1-14, doi: 10.1093/plankt/fbu020
Leaving the cold of a New England February behind, the Darwin team will be in full attendance at this year’s Ocean Sciences conference taking place February 23-28 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Idealized equilibrium models have attributed the observed size structure of marine communities to the interactions between nutrient and grazing control. In a new paper in the Journal of Plankton Research Ben Ward and co-authors Stephanie Dutkiewicz and Mick Follows examine this theory in a more realistic context using a size-structured global ocean food-web model, together with a much simplified version of the same model for which equilibrium solutions are readily obtained.
Continue reading Size Structure: exploring nutrient versus grazing control
Ward, B.A., S. Dutkiewicz, and M.J. Follows (2014) Modelling spatial and temporal patterns in size-structured marine plankton communities: top-down and bottom-up controls, Journal of Plankton Research, 0, 1-17, doi:10.1093/plankt/fbt097
For some microbes, the motto for growth is not so much “every cell for itself,” but rather, “all for one and one for all.”
MIT researchers have found that cells in a bacterial colony grow in a way that benefits the community as a whole. That is, while an individual cell may divide in the presence of plentiful resources to benefit itself, when a cell is a member of a larger colony, it may choose instead to grow in a more cooperative fashion, increasing an entire colony’s chance of survival.
Clayton, S., S. Dutkiewicz , O. Jahn, and M.J. Follows (2013), Ocean eddies and dispersal maintain phytoplankton diversity, Limnology and Oceanography, Fluids and Environments, Volume 3: 182–197, doi: 10.1215/21573689-2373515
Ward, B.A., S. Dutkiewicz, and M.J. Follows (2013), Top-down and bottom-up controls in a global size-structured plankton food-web model, Journal of Plankton Research , 0, 1-17, doi: 10.1093/plankt/fbt097
Lauderdale, J.M., A.C.N. Garabato, K.I.C. Oliver, M.J. Follows and R.G. Williams(2013), Wind-driven changes in Southern Ocean residual circulation, ocean carbon reservoirs and atmospheric CO2, Climate Dynamics, vol. 41, pp. 2145, doi: 10.1007%2Fs00382-012-1650-3
Predators’ switching towards the most abundant prey is a mechanism that stabilizes population dynamics and helps overcome competitive exclusion of species in food webs. However, current formulations of active prey-switching in marine ecosystem models display non-maximal feeding; the total ingestion of prey by predators decays exponentially with the number of prey species even though the total prey biomass stays constant.
Continue reading The dynamics of dining in an all-you-can-eat-phytoplankton buffet