Environmental drivers of population variability in colony‐forming marine diatoms

Many aquatic microbes form colonies, yet little is known about their abundance and fitness relative to single‐celled taxa. The formation of diatom chains, in particular, has implications for diatom growth, survival, and carbon transfer. Here, we utilize an autonomous underwater microscope, combined with traditional microscopy, to develop a novel, multiyear record of the abundance of single‐cell and colony‐forming diatoms at Scripps Pier, a coastal location in the Southern California Bight. The total abundance of diatoms was lower during the warmer and more stratified conditions from 2015 to early 2016, but increased in cooler and less stratified conditions in mid‐2016 to late 2017. Diatom blooms were dominated by chain‐forming taxa, whereas solitary diatoms prevailed during low‐biomass conditions. The abundance of dinoflagellates, some of which are important diatom predators, is highest when colonies (chains) are most abundant. These observations of the diatom assemblage are consistent with a trade‐off between resource acquisition and predator defenses. Solitary diatom cells dominated during conditions with weak nutrient supply because they have a greater diffusive catchment area per cell in comparison to cells living in colonies. In contrast, during bloom conditions when nutrient supply is high and predators are abundant, forming a colony may reduce predation losses to quickly growing microzooplankton predators, and afford chains a higher fitness despite the costs of sharing resources with neighboring cells. These results highlight the contrasting ecology of single‐cell and chain‐forming diatoms, and the need to differentiate them in monitoring campaigns and ecological models.