The Role of Mixotrophy in Southern Ocean Ecosystems: The Sensitivity of Model Dynamics to the Magnitude and Form of Mixotroph Interactions Between Plankton

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Norbury, John
Moroz, Irene M
Cropp, Roger
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2019
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Abstract

We investigate the influence of mixotrophy on the dynamical properties of a six-population model of a three–trophic level Southern Ocean ecosystem. We find that including mixotrophic interactions between the lowest trophic level populations can significantly influence the dynamics of the highest trophic level populations, and in extreme cases lead to extinctions. Significantly, not only is the strength of the mixotrophic interaction important, it matters how it is included in the model, as a specialist or generalist grazer. We note in particular that the generalist formulation is inappropriate for “green” mixotrophs that fuel the majority of their growth by photosynthesis. The model can have complicated dynamics when subject to large amplitude, regular forcing, suggesting the sea ice—salps link may be obfuscated by endogenous population oscillations. Further, we observe that constructing the model within the Conservative Normal framework allows insights into the bifurcation behaviour of the model.

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Environmental Modeling and Assessment

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© 2019 Springer. This is an electronic version of an article published in Environmental Modeling and Assessment, 2019. Environmental Modeling and Assessment is available online at: http://link.springer.com// with the open URL of your article.

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This publication has been entered into Griffith Research Online as an Advanced Online Version.

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Oceanography

Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology)

Biological oceanography

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