Paradox of the plankton

Paradox of the plankton

In aquatic biology, the paradox of the plankton is the name given to the situation where a limited range of resources (light, nutrients) supports a much wider range of planktonic organisms. The paradox stems from a result of the competitive exclusion principle (sometimes referred to as Gause's Law), which suggests that when two species compete for the same resource, ultimately only one will persist and the other will be driven to extinction. The high diversity of phytoplankton at all phylogenetic levels stands in contrast to the limited range of resources they compete with one another for (e.g. nitrate, phosphate, silicic acid, iron).

The paradox was originally described by the limnologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson [Hutchinson, G. E. (1961) [http://www.jstor.org/view/00030147/di006087/00p0470t/0 The paradox of the plankton] . "American Naturalist" 95, 137-145.] , who proposed that factors such as vertical gradients of light or turbulence; symbiosis or commensalism; differential predation; or constantly changing environmental conditions may resolve the paradox. More recent work has proposed that the paradox can be resolved by factors such as: size-selective grazing [Wiggert, J.D., Haskell, A.G.E., Paffenhofer, G.A., Hofmann, E.E. and Klinck, J.M. (2005) [http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/fbi090v1 The role of feeding behavior in sustaining copepod populations in the tropical ocean] . "Journal of Plankton Research" 27, 1013-1031.] ; spatio-temporal heterogeneity [Miyazaki, T., Tainaka, K., Togashi, T., Suzuki, T. and Yoshimura, J. (2006) [http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200611/000020061106A0324715.php Spatial coexistence of phytoplankton species in ecological timescale] . "Population Ecology" 48, 107-112.] ; environmental fluctuations [Descamps-Julien, B. and Gonzalez, A. (2005) [http://www.biologie.ens.fr/bioemco/biodiversite/descamps/ecology05.pdf Stable coexistence in a fluctuating environment: An experimental demonstration] . "Ecology" 86, 2815-2824.] . More generally, some researchers suggest that ecological and environmental factors continually interact such that the plankton habitat never reaches an equilibrium for which a single species is favoured [Scheffer, M., Rinaldi, S., Huisman, J. and Weissing, F.J. (2003) [http://www.springerlink.com/content/vn768133l633114x/ Why plankton communities have no equilibrium: solutions to the paradox] . "Hydrobiologia" 491, 9-18.] .

References

ee also

* Phytoplankton
* Zooplankton


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Plankton — For other uses, see Plankton (disambiguation). Photomontage of planktonic organisms Plankton (singular plankter) are any drifting organisms (plants …   Wikipedia

  • Continuous Plankton Recorder — The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey is one of the longest running marine biological monitoring programmes in the world. Started in 1931 by Sir Alister Hardy, the CPR has provided marine scientists with their only measure of plankton… …   Wikipedia

  • Trophic state index — The quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other biologically useful nutrients are the primary determinants of a body of water s trophic state index (TSI). Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus tend to be limiting resources in standing water …   Wikipedia

  • Microbial food web — The microbial food web refers the combined trophic interactions among microbes in aquatic environments. These microbes include viruses, bacteria, algae, heterotrophic protists (such as ciliates and flagellates). In aquatic environments, microbes… …   Wikipedia

  • Spawn (biology) — The spawn (eggs) of a clownfish. The black spots are the eyes developing. Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm,… …   Wikipedia

  • Eutrophication — The eutrophication of the Potomac River is evident from its bright green water, caused by a dense bloom of cyanobacteria. Eutrophication (Greek: eutrophia healthy, adequate nutrition, development; German: Eutrophie) or more precisely… …   Wikipedia

  • Stream bed — The bed of this stream is armored with rocks, some very rounded (having had a longer life in the stream) and some not. A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream, river or creek; the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral… …   Wikipedia

  • Coral reef fish — The fish that inhabit coral reefs are numerous and diverse. Coral reef fish are fish which live amongst or in close relation to coral reefs. Coral reefs form complex ecosystems with tremendous biodiversity. Among the myriad inhabitants, the fish… …   Wikipedia

  • Ecological footprint — The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth s ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet s ecological capacity to regenerate.[1] It represents the amount of …   Wikipedia

  • Marine invertebrates — The 49th plate from Ernst Haeckel s Kunstformen der Natur, 1904, showing various sea anemones classified as Actiniae Marine invertebrates are animals that inhabit a marine environment and are invertebrates, lacking a vertebral column. In order to …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”