Light limitation increases multidimensional trait evenness in phytoplankton populations.

ABSTRACT: Individual-level variation arising from responses to environmental gradients influences population and community dynamics. How such responses empirically relate to the mechanisms that govern species coexistence is, however, poorly understood. Previous results from l ake phytoplankton communities suggested that the evenness of organismal traits in multiple dimensions increases with resource limitation, possibly due to resource partitioning at the individual level. Here we experimentally tested the emergence of this pattern by growing two phytoplankton species (Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and Microcystis aeruginosa) under a gradient of light intensity, in monoculture and jointly. Under low light (resource) conditions, the populations diversified into a wide range of phenotypes, which wer

SUBMITTER: Fontana S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6474219 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature