From webs, loops, shunts, and pumps to microbial multitasking: evolving concepts of marine microbial ecology, the mixoplankton paradigm, and implications for a future ocean

Glibert, Patricia M. and Mitra, Aditee ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5572-9331 2022. From webs, loops, shunts, and pumps to microbial multitasking: evolving concepts of marine microbial ecology, the mixoplankton paradigm, and implications for a future ocean. Limnology and Oceanography 67 (3) , pp. 585-597. 10.1002/lno.12018

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (1MB)

Abstract

Emerging knowledge of mixoplankton—ubiquitous microbes that employ phototrophy and phagotrophy synergistically in one cell—reshapes our knowledge of the flow of materials and energy, with wide-reaching impacts on marine productivity, biodiversity, and sustainability. Conceptual models of microbial interactions have evolved from food-chains, where carbon-fixing phytoplankton are conceived as being grazed solely by zooplankton that, in turn, support fisheries and higher trophic levels, to microbial webs, loops, and shunts, as knowledge about abundance, activity, and roles of marine microbial organisms—as well as the complexity of their interactions—has increased. In a future world, plankton that depend on a single strategy for acquiring nutrition (photo-autotrophy or phago-heterotrophy) may be disadvantaged with increasing temperatures and ocean acidification impacting vital rates, thermal stratification decreasing water column nutrient exchange, and anthropogenic pollution shifting amounts, forms, and proportions of nutrients. These conditions can lead to stoichiometric imbalances that may promote mixoplanktonic species with an increasing likelihood of harmful blooms. Such changes in plankton species composition alters the interconnectivity of oceanic microbes with direct consequences on biogeochemical cycling, trophic dynamics, and ecosystem services. Here, the implications of the mixoplankton paradigm relative to traditional concepts of microbial oceanography in a globally-changing, anthropogenically-impacted world are explored.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences Water Research Institute (WATER)
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License
Publisher:	Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO)
ISSN:	0024-3590
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	25 January 2022
Date of Acceptance:	20 December 2021
Last Modified:	02 May 2023 11:43
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/146838

Citation Data

Cited 2 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item