ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
Marine mixotrophy increases trophic transfer efficiency, mean organism size, and vertical carbon flux.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 90 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
90 citing papers in PubMed.
- Functional Identity Drives Directional Shifts in Freshwater Plankton Biomass-Size Relationships.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Linking Protistan Trophic Indicators to Phylogenetic Identity: From Single-Cell Grazing Evidence to Biogeographic Context.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Warm-core eddy intensifies surface mixotrophic bacterivory and fuels mesopelagic heterotrophic grazing.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Drivers and Consequences of Size Declines in Unicells.Ecology letters · 2026Review
- Microbial signatures define the ecosystem functions of the pelagic microbiome in a basin-scale, Southwest Atlantic Ocean.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Dissolved Organic Carbon Regulates Bacterial Ingestion by Tetraselmis sp.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Balancing photosynthesis and respiration in North Pacific protist communities.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Protistan Plankton Responses to Variable Light and Upwelling in the Peruvian Humboldt Current System: Insights Into Community Dynamics Under Environmental Change.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Interactions with bacteria shape diatom adaptation to carbon concentration changes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Nuclear genome assembly and annotation for the phagotrophic green alga Nephroselmis pyriformis.Journal of phycology · 2025Article
- Contrasting patterns in diversity and community assembly of bacterioplankton and three size fractions of protists in the South China Sea.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- A multifunctional organelle coordinates phagocytosis and chlorophagy in a marine eukaryote phytoplankton Scyphosphaera apsteinii.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Cell size explains shift in phytoplankton community structure following storm-induced changes in light and nutrients.Ecology · 2025Article
- Do trophic strategies shape biogeography and environmental niches? Marine dinoflagellates as a case study.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Latitude- and depth-driven divergence in protist trophic strategies revealed by a machine learning model.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Variable responses to ocean acidification among mixotrophic protists with different lifestyles.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Shifting phytoplankton ecological strategies along a continuum of tidewater glacier retreat.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Predicting optimal mixotrophic metabolic strategies in the global ocean.Science advances · 2024Article
- Phagotrophy in the nitrogen-fixing haptophyte Braarudosphaera bigelowii.Environmental microbiology reports · 2024Article
- Article
30 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mixotrophic plankton, which combine the uptake of inorganic resources and the ingestion of living prey, are ubiquitous in marine ecosystems, but their integrated biogeochemical impacts remain unclear. We address this issue by removing the strict distinction between phytoplankton and zooplankton from a global model of the marine plankton food web. This simplification allows the emergence of a realistic trophic network with increased fidelity to empirical estimates of plankton community structure and elemental stoichiometry, relative to a system in which autotrophy and heterotrophy are mutually exclusive. Mixotrophy enhances the transfer of biomass to larger sizes classes further up the food chain, leading to an approximately threefold increase in global mean organism size and an ∼35% increase in sinking carbon flux.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.