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A comment on “Nutrient status and nutrient competition of phytoplankton in a shallow, hypertrophic lake” (Sommer)
Author(s) -
Prairie Yves T.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1990.35.3.0778
Subject(s) - limnology , nutrient , phytoplankton , competition (biology) , ecology , biology
Sommer (1989) reported the results of a field study in which he tested some predictions derived from resource competition theory (sensu Tilman 1982), namely that the competitive performance of various species of phytoplankton can be ordered along some resource ratio gradient. Although Sommer (1989) found significant correlations between the success of a species within the phytoplankton and some resources ratio gradient that are consistent with his original hypothesis, the method he used to analyze the data is inappropriate. The inadequacy stems from its inability to distinguish between a resource ratio effect and a direct resource effect. I maintain that while resource ratios may be important in regulating species abundance in natural phytoplankton populations, alternate hypotheses inconsistent with the resource ratio hypothesis may also explain Sommer’s results. The inadequacy of the approach is essentially statistical and can be demonstrated by considering the different ways by which a significant correlation between the species’ performance and a resource ratio (log-transformed as by Sommer 1989) can arise. As an example, consider the following simple model: