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Evidence for a three‐way trade‐off between nitrogen and phosphorus competitive abilities and cell size in phytoplankton
Author(s) -
Edwards Kyle F.,
Klausmeier Christopher A.,
Litchman Elena
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.1890/11-0395.1
Subject(s) - phytoplankton , competition (biology) , ecology , nutrient , phosphorus , community structure , biology , cell size , nitrogen , chemistry , organic chemistry , microbiology and biotechnology
Trade‐offs among functional traits are essential for explaining community structure and species coexistence. While two‐way trade‐offs have been investigated in many systems, higher‐dimensional trade‐offs remain largely hypothetical. Here we demonstrate a three‐way trade‐off between cell size and competitive abilities for nitrogen and phosphorus in marine and freshwater phytoplankton. At a given cell size, competitive abilities for N and P are negatively correlated, but as cell size increases, competitive ability decreases for both nutrients. The relative importance of the two trade‐off axes appears to be environment dependent, suggesting different selective pressures: freshwater phytoplankton separate more along the N vs. P competition axis, and marine phytoplankton separate more along the nutrient competition vs. cell size axis. Our results demonstrate the multidimensional nature of key trade‐offs among traits and suggest that such trade‐offs may drive species interactions and structure ecological communities.