ArticleScientific reports2019
Planktonic food web structure and trophic transfer efficiency along a productivity gradient in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Top-down control of planktonic ciliates by microcrustacean predators is stronger in lakes than in the ocean.Scientific reports · 2022Pooled it
- Projecting Impacts of Marine Heatwaves and Their Effects on Long-Term Changes in Marine Ecosystems Over the 21st Century.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Coupled increases in pelagic fish productivity and export productivity during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Phytoplankton dominance alters basal energy pathways and food web structure in eutrophic shallow lakes.iScience · 2026Article
- Particle-Associated Bacterioplankton Communities Across the Red Sea.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Numerical and functional response of phagotrophic aquatic protists: the ideal experiment-and why we cannot get it.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Light-driven diel oscillations in microbial metabolism underpin estuarine biogeochemical resilience.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Diatom-mediated food web functioning under ocean artificial upwelling.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Contrasting sea ice conditions shape microbial food webs in Hudson Bay (Canadian Arctic).ISME communications · 2022Article
- Protist impacts on marine cyanovirocell metabolism.ISME communications · 2022Article
- An analytical solution to ecosystem-based FMSY using trophic transfer efficiency of prey consumption to predator biological production.PloS one · 2022Article
- Future phytoplankton diversity in a changing climate.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Predator Chemical Cue Effects on the Diel Feeding Behaviour of Marine Protists.Microbial ecology · 2021Article
- Trophic indices for micronektonic fishes reveal their dependence on the microbial system in the North Atlantic.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Characterizing niche differentiation among marine consumers with amino acid δEcology and evolution · 2020Article
- Weekly variations of viruses and heterotrophic nanoflagellates and their potential impact on bacterioplankton in shallow waters of the central Red Sea.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2020Article
- The planktonic protist interactome: where do we stand after a century of research?The ISME journal · 2020Review
- Should we reconsider how to assess eutrophication?Journal of plankton researchReview
- On the ecological duality between ciliates and dinoflagellates across marine ecosystems.Journal of plankton researchReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Oligotrophic and productive areas of the ocean differ in plankton community composition and biomass transfer efficiency. Here, we describe the plankton community along a latitudinal transect in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean. Prochlorococcus dominated the autotrophic community at the surface and mixed layer of oligotrophic stations, replaced by phototrophic picoeukaryotes and Synechococcus in productive waters. Depth-integrated biomass of microzooplankton was higher than mesozooplankton at oligotrophic stations, showing similar biomasses in productive waters. Dinoflagellates dominated in oligotrophic waters but ciliates dominated upwelling regions. In oligotrophic areas, microzooplankton consumed ca. 80% of the production, but ca. 66% in upwelling zones. Differences in microzooplankton and phytoplankton communities explain microzooplankton diel feeding rhythms: higher grazing rates during daylight in oligotrophic areas and diffuse grazing patterns in productive waters. Oligotrophic areas were more efficient at recycling and using nutrients through phytoplankton, while the energy transfer efficiency from nutrients to mesozooplankton appeared more efficient in productive waters. Our results support the classic paradigm of a shorter food web, and more efficient energy transfer towards upper food web levels in productive regions, but a microbially dominated, and very efficient, food web in oligotrophic regions. Remarkably, both models of food web exist under very high microzooplankton herbivory.
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