Projecting marine plankton responses to climate change using realized niches

海洋浮游植物是单细胞的、微小的光合生物，分布在世界海洋的100米以上。总的来说，它们负责地球上大约一半的光合作用，并为整个海洋食物网提供资源。光合作用将无机碳转化为有机碳，由于一些有机碳沉入深海，浮游植物在从大气中去除二氧化碳方面发挥了积极作用。微浮游动物和中浮游动物是介导营养转移和向深海输出光合碳的主要生物。海洋中的许多条件将在下个世纪发生变化，包括温度、表面风速、混合层的深度以及浮游植物生长所需的营养资源的分布。因此，浮游生物生产力的变化预计会对海洋食物网和碳的生物地球化学循环产生影响。目前关于浮游生物生理学和生态学的知识还不足以对预期的变化作出可信的预测。

Marine phytoplankton are unicellular, microscopic photosynthetic organisms found throughout the upper 100 m of the world's oceans. In aggregate they are responsible for about half of the total of all photosynthesis on Earth and provide the resources for the entire marine food web. Photosynthesis converts inorganic carbon to organic carbon and since some of the organic carbon sinks into the deep ocean, phytoplankton play an active role in removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Micro- and mesozooplankton are the primary organisms which mediate both trophic transfer and export of photosynthetic carbon to the deep sea. Many conditions in the oceans will change over the next century including temperature, surface wind speeds, the depth of the mixed layer, and the distribution of nutrient resources required by phytoplankton to grow. Thus changes in the productivity of plankton are expected with consequences for the marine food web and the biogeochemical cycling of carbon. Current knowledge of plankton physiology and ecology is insufficient to make credible projections of the anticipated changes.