Rehabilitating the cyanobacteria - niche partitioning, resource use efficiency and phytoplankton community structure during diazotrophic cyanobacterial blooms.

ABSTRACT: Blooms of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria are recurrent phenomena in marine and freshwater habitats, and their supplying role in aquatic biogeochemical cycles is generally considered vital. The objective of this study was to analyse whether an increasing proportion of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria affects (i) the composition of the non-diazotrophic component of ambient phytoplankton communities and (ii) resource use efficiency (RUE; ratio of Chl a to total nutrients) - an important ecosystem function. We hypothesize that diazotrophs increase community P use and decrease N use efficiencies, as new N is brought into the system, relaxing N, and concomitantly aggravating P limitation. We test this by analysing an extensive data set from the Baltic Sea (> 3700 quantitative phytoplankton sa

SUBMITTER: Olli K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4744973 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature