Beyond the mean: phytoplankton responses to fluctuating resource and energy supply

环境变化不仅改变了平均条件，也改变了这些条件周围的时间和空间变化(例如，温度变化、营养脉冲)。关于资源和温度波动的综合影响，存在一些关于脉冲(与恒定)资源供应如何改变群落组成和性能的基础研究。然而，这些考虑很少--如果有的话--被放在变暖的资源背景下，而且没有一项研究明确地解决不止一个维度的波动。这项建议解决了单一养殖和淡水浮游植物群落的温度、光照和营养物质波动的后果。物种特有的信息用于在群落层面进行预测，使我们能够测试波动效应如何在多物种群落中得到缓冲。该项目的创新之处在于我们评估了波动的资源(营养物质和光线)和波动的温度对淡水浮游植物的交互影响。为了理解潜在的机制，我们将同时操纵波动的频率和幅度。因此，我们解决了资源和能源的同时波动如何改变浮游植物生长、资源利用和生物量产量的知识鸿沟。

Environmental changes do not only alter mean conditions but also the temporal and spatial variance around these conditions (e.g., temperature variance, nutrient pulses). Concerning the combined effects of resource and temperature fluctuations, some fundamental studies exist on how pulsed (versus constant) resource supply alters community composition and performance. However, these considerations have rarely – if ever – been placed in a warming-resource context, and none of the studies are explicitly addressing fluctuations in more than one dimension. This proposal addresses the consequence of fluctuations in temperature, light and nutrients for monocultures and communities of freshwater phytoplankton. The species-specific information serves to make predictions at the community level, allowing us to test how fluctuation effects might be buffered in multispecies communities. The originality of the project lies in our approach to assess the interactive effect of fluctuating resources (nutrients and light) and fluctuating temperature on freshwater phytoplankton. To understand the underlying mechanisms, we will manipulate both the frequency and the amplitude of fluctuations. Thereby we address the knowledge gap how simultaneous fluctuations in resources and energy will alter phytoplankton growth, resource use and biomass yield.