Macroscale patterns of oceanic zooplankton composition and size structure
Manoela C. Brandão, Fabio Benedetti, Séverine Martini, Yawouvi Dodji Soviadan, Jean‐Olivier Irisson, Jean‐Baptiste Romagnan, Amanda Elineau, Corinne Desnos, Laëtitia Jalabert, Andrea Santarosa Freire, Marc Picheral, Lionel Guidi, Gabriel Gorsky, Chris Bowler, Lee Karp-Boss, Nicolas Henry, Colomban de Vargas, Matthew B. Sullivan, Silvia G. Acinas, Marcel Babin, Peer Bork, Emmanuel Boss, Chris Bowler, Guy Cochrane, Colomban de Vargas, Gabriel Gorsky, Lionel Guidi, Nigel Grimsley, Pascal Hingamp, Daniele Iudicone, Olivier Jaillon, Stefanie Kandels‐Lewis, Lee Karp-Boss, Eric Karsenti, Fabrice Not, Hiroyuki Ogata, Nicole Poulton, Stephane Pesant, Jeroen Raes, Christian Sardet, Sabrina Speich, Lars Stemmann, Matthew B. Sullivan, Shinichi Sunagawa, Patrick Wincker, Lars Stemmann, Fabien Lombard
Abstract
sequestration. The latter services are partly governed by variations in plankton community composition and the expression of traits such as body size at community-level. While community assembly has been thoroughly studied for the smaller end of the plankton size spectrum, the larger end comprises ectotherms that are often studied at the species, or group-level, rather than as communities. The body size of marine ectotherms decreases with temperature, but controls on community-level traits remain elusive, hindering the predictability of marine services provision. Here, we leverage Tara Oceans datasets to determine how zooplankton community composition and size structure varies with latitude, temperature and productivity-related covariates in the global surface ocean. Zooplankton abundance and median size decreased towards warmer and less productive environments, as a result of changes in copepod composition. However, some clades displayed the opposite relationships, which may be ascribed to alternative feeding strategies. Given that climate models predict increasingly warmed and stratified oceans, our findings suggest that zooplankton communities will shift towards smaller organisms which might weaken their contribution to the biological carbon pump.