Plankton trait flexibility and lake food web functioning

生态群落越来越多地暴露于高度的时间和空间变化，因为与人类世有关的多种强迫因素影响其结构和功能。有许多因素可能通过生态和进化过程的反馈，潜在地推动社区形成新的配置。在湖泊中，人为强迫因素，如与气候有关的无机或有机养分供应变化、水色或温度变化，可以影响种群的常设功能性状变异，从而影响浮游食物网的结构和功能。因此，拟议的研究计划的长期目标是研究浮游生物群落可能如何通过其组成种群内表达的功能性状的变化来响应这些强迫因素。因此，我的实验室将继续成为浮游生物群落功能性状方法的领导者，扩大迄今为止的方法，主要涉及分配一个不变的能力，为某些生理或行为特征的物种在社区名单中确定主要使用经典的分类方法。 我提出了原创的新研究，这将包括浮游植物资源获取特性的动态视角，这些特性实际上是高度灵活的，取决于当地条件。特别是，混合营养的特点，目前在某些浮游植物类群，使他们能够获得能源和资源，通过吞噬或光合自养的喂养表型可塑性。我们将确定在何种程度上喂养性状可塑性（混合营养）是牵连在产生浮游生物共存和多样性的季节变化和气候变化，并评估如何社区混合营养的相对表达影响食物网的结构和功能。我们将在不同的季节进行相互移植和围隔实验，以测试水柱稳定性和冰盖变化的关系，以及在不同的食物网背景下。在我的研究计划的这种演变将涉及到新的技术和实验方法的结合，从社区生态学，微生物学，分子生态学和湖沼学在一个综合的方式，包括：流式细胞术，下一代测序，稳定同位素探测，和潜水荧光。 通过几个HQP的培训，研究将有助于浮游生物之间的生态相互作用和资源获取性状可塑性在促进生物多样性的作用的基本生态学的理解。拟议的研究计划是高度创新的，并有可能改变我们如何看待微生物循环的贡献，以更高的营养食物网结构和通量内典型的北温带湖泊，确保更新颖，更准确地代表湖泊食物网功能的人为影响。

Ecological communities are increasingly exposed to high degrees of temporal and spatial variation as multiple forcing factors related to the Anthropocene influence their structure and function. There are a number of factors that may potentially drive communities to new configurations via feedbacks through ecological and evolutionary processes. In lakes, anthropogenic forcing factors, such as climate-related variation in inorganic or organic nutrient availability, water colour or thermal shifts can influence standing functional trait variation in populations to affect the structure and function of planktonic food webs. The long-term goal of the proposed research program is thus to examine how plankton communities are likely respond to such forcing factors via the variation in functional traits expressed within their component populations. My lab will thus continue to be a leader in functional trait approaches to plankton commmunities, expanding on approaches that have to date, largely involved assigning an unvarying capacity for certain physiological or behavioural traits to species in community lists identified using primarily classical taxonomic methods. I propose original new research, which will incorporate a dynamical perspective of phytoplankton resource acquisition traits, which are actually highly flexible, dependent on local conditions. In particular, mixotrophy characterizes the feeding phenotypic plasticity present in certain phytoplankton taxa enabling them to obtain energy and resources through phagotrophy or photoautotrophy. We will determine the degree to which feeding trait plasticity (mixotrophy) is implicated in generating plankton coexistence and diversity in relation to seasonal variation and climate change, and assess how the relative expression of community mixotrophy affects food web structure and function. We will conduct reciprocal transplant and mesocosm experiments across different seasons to test for relations with water column stability and ice cover variation, as well as under different food web contexts. This evolution in my research program will involve the incorporation of novel technologies and experimental approaches from community ecology, microbiology, molecular ecology and limnology in an integrated way, including: flow cytometry, next-generation sequencing, stable isotope probing, and submersible fluorometry. Through the training of several HQP, the research will contribute to basic ecological understanding of the ecological interactions between plankton and the role of resource acquisition trait plasticity in contributing to biodiversity. The proposed research program is highly innovative and has the potential to shift how we view the contribution of the microbial loop to the higher planktonic food web structure and to fluxes within typical north temperate lakes, ensuring more novel and more accurate representation of lake food web functioning under anthropogenic influence.