Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival
Understanding the biology of reproduction is important for retracing key evolutionary processes in organisms, yet gaining detailed insights often poses major challenges. Planktonic Foraminifera are globally distributed marine microbial eukaryotes and important contributors to the global carbon cycle...
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ftunivgeneve:oai:unige.ch:unige:144343 2023-05-15T18:00:19+02:00 Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival Weinkauf, Manuel Siccha, Michael Weiner, Agnes K. M. 2020 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:144343 eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1101/2020.11.04.368100 unige:144343 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:144343 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ CC-BY-NC-ND info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/550 Planktonic Foraminifera Reproduction Modelling Plankton Ecology and evolution Survival Text info:eu-repo/semantics/preprint Preprint 2020 ftunivgeneve https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.04.368100 2022-02-08T22:30:42Z Understanding the biology of reproduction is important for retracing key evolutionary processes in organisms, yet gaining detailed insights often poses major challenges. Planktonic Foraminifera are globally distributed marine microbial eukaryotes and important contributors to the global carbon cycle. Their extant biodiversity shows restricted distribution patterns of some species, whereas others are cosmopolitan in the world ocean. Planktonic Foraminifera cannot be bred under laboratory conditions, and thus details of their life cycle remain incomplete. Solely the production of flagellated gametes has been observed and taken as an indication for an exclusively sexual reproduction. Yet, sexual reproduction by spawning of gametes in the open ocean relies on sufficient gamete encounters to maintain viable populations, which represents a problem for organisms that lack the means of active propulsion and are marked by low population densities. To increase knowledge on the reproductive biology of planktonic Foraminifera, we applied a dynamic, individual-based modelling approach with parameters based on laboratory and field observations to test if random gamete encounters under commonly observed population densities are sufficient for maintaining viable populations. We show that temporal synchronization and potentially spatial concentration of gamete release seems inevitable for maintenance of the population. We argue that planktonic Foraminifera optimized their individual reproductive success at the expense of community-wide gene flow, which may explain their high degree of diversity. Our modelling approach helps to illuminate foraminiferal population dynamics and to predict the existence of necessary reproduction strategies, which may be detected in future field experiments. This study therefore contributes to our understanding of plankton ecology and evolution and their reproductive strategies in the open ocean. Report Planktonic foraminifera Université de Genève: Archive ouverte UNIGE |
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Université de Genève: Archive ouverte UNIGE |
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ftunivgeneve |
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English |
topic |
info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/550 Planktonic Foraminifera Reproduction Modelling Plankton Ecology and evolution Survival |
spellingShingle |
info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/550 Planktonic Foraminifera Reproduction Modelling Plankton Ecology and evolution Survival Weinkauf, Manuel Siccha, Michael Weiner, Agnes K. M. Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival |
topic_facet |
info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/550 Planktonic Foraminifera Reproduction Modelling Plankton Ecology and evolution Survival |
description |
Understanding the biology of reproduction is important for retracing key evolutionary processes in organisms, yet gaining detailed insights often poses major challenges. Planktonic Foraminifera are globally distributed marine microbial eukaryotes and important contributors to the global carbon cycle. Their extant biodiversity shows restricted distribution patterns of some species, whereas others are cosmopolitan in the world ocean. Planktonic Foraminifera cannot be bred under laboratory conditions, and thus details of their life cycle remain incomplete. Solely the production of flagellated gametes has been observed and taken as an indication for an exclusively sexual reproduction. Yet, sexual reproduction by spawning of gametes in the open ocean relies on sufficient gamete encounters to maintain viable populations, which represents a problem for organisms that lack the means of active propulsion and are marked by low population densities. To increase knowledge on the reproductive biology of planktonic Foraminifera, we applied a dynamic, individual-based modelling approach with parameters based on laboratory and field observations to test if random gamete encounters under commonly observed population densities are sufficient for maintaining viable populations. We show that temporal synchronization and potentially spatial concentration of gamete release seems inevitable for maintenance of the population. We argue that planktonic Foraminifera optimized their individual reproductive success at the expense of community-wide gene flow, which may explain their high degree of diversity. Our modelling approach helps to illuminate foraminiferal population dynamics and to predict the existence of necessary reproduction strategies, which may be detected in future field experiments. This study therefore contributes to our understanding of plankton ecology and evolution and their reproductive strategies in the open ocean. |
format |
Report |
author |
Weinkauf, Manuel Siccha, Michael Weiner, Agnes K. M. |
author_facet |
Weinkauf, Manuel Siccha, Michael Weiner, Agnes K. M. |
author_sort |
Weinkauf, Manuel |
title |
Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival |
title_short |
Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival |
title_full |
Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival |
title_fullStr |
Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival |
title_full_unstemmed |
Reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: Individual success versus population survival |
title_sort |
reproduction of a marine planktonic protist: individual success versus population survival |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:144343 |
genre |
Planktonic foraminifera |
genre_facet |
Planktonic foraminifera |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1101/2020.11.04.368100 unige:144343 https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:144343 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.04.368100 |
_version_ |
1766169364915027968 |