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While the planet experiences unprecedented human-induced biodiversity loss, from marine to terrestrial realms, and from microbes to large mammals, evidence that biodiversity...
A new theoretical model describes the trade-offs and physiological limits determining the body plan of planktonic filter feeders and explains why gelatinous plankton...
We compiled 14 traits of 1700 marine fish species on three latitudinal gradients to facilitate large-scale studies on fish traits and functional diversity of fish communities...
Diatoms contribute nearly half of the marine primary production. These microalgae differ from other phytoplankton groups in having a silicified cell wall, which is the...
Jellyfish are weird creatures that can reproduce in different modes both sexually and asexually. Similar functional strategies are also present in several other species...
Defense mechanisms are very common in unicellular plankton. A wide variety of these mechanisms (toxins, shell etc.) is observed and it is rather difficult to quantify...
A mechanistic model of diatoms reveals a conundrum. The defining physical attributes of diatoms – their silica shell and their large central vacuole – give diatoms an...
Increases in temperature increase enzymatic activity, so one expects growth to also increase. However, this is not always the case. We show that when organisms are resource...
Changes in the distribution of zooplankton in the North Atlantic during the past 55 years has led to major changes in the biological carbon pump.
Our traditional view of the interactions between marine organisms is conceptualized as food webs where species interact with one another mainly via direct consumption...
The North Sea fish community has a long history of intense fishing and environmental change. Scientific bottom trawl surveys, which have been ongoing in the North Sea...
Trade-offs are the cornerstone of trait-based ecology. They describe the advantages and costs of a certain trait, and thus determine when and where organisms with that...
Ectotherms often grow to a smaller adult body size when reared in warmer conditions. Typically, this is because development rate increases faster than growth rate with...
A new paper from the Center for Ocean Life shows that the implications of a recent Science paper by Barneche et al. (Science 360(6389): 642) are much less dramatic than...
Choanoflagellates are filter feeders and an important component of microbial foodwebs. Because they are the ancestors of multicellular life, they have been intensely...
Can we apply economic principles to fish ecology and diel vertical migration? It appears that the way fish and zooplankton behave in the presence of other individuals can...
Do zooplankton traits matter? Scaling up trade-offs to the global scale. Taxa-transcending traits and trade-offs have been shown through lab experiments and literature...
Centre's annual retreat took place in Hohenwarte 10-13 December to summarize the scientific success of 2018 and discuss future directions.
When we look at nutrient poor (oligotrophic) and nutrient rich (eutrophic) ecosystem, we generally observe different species. We can therefore conclude that these ecosystems...
Copepods avoid eating most toxic dinoflagellates and thus the toxin efficiently protects the algae against grazing
Is toxin production in phytoplankton costly? How do environmental conditions affect the cost of toxin production?
Marine ecosystems are overwhelmingly complex. The trait-based method offers a simple way to describe, model, and understand complex marine systems. In a new paper we...
What zooplankton foraging strategy is more efficient in terms of volume of water cleared? What mechanism determines clearance efficiency of zooplankton foraging strategies...
After oil spills and dispersant applications, the formation of red tides or harmful algal blooms (HABs) has been observed, but the link between both phenomena was unknown...
A new Ocean Life paper demonstrates a global mismatch in the protection of multiple marine biodiversity components and ecosystem services.
New review experimentally exploring plankton defense mechanism
Some copepods, mm-sized zooplankton, that live in the very surface layer of the ocean jump out of the water and perform spectacular flights when escaping from predators...
Density dependence is the major driving force behind population regulation. Here we looked at density-dependent growth in real-life fish stocks, and how this relates...
Many species of phytoplankton produce substances that are toxic to both human consumers and planktonic grazers, and toxin production is often considered a defense mechanism...
Centre for Ocean Life offers 3-year PhD fellowships in experimental plankton ecology and trait-based modelling within the general topic of trait-based Marine Ecology. The...
Biodiversity is a multifaceted concept, yet most biodiversity studies have taken a taxonomic approach, implying that all species are equally important. However, species...
Centre's annual retreat took place 13-14/12 in Faxe to summarize the scientific success of 2017.
To understand the effects of climate change on changing ocean biomass, understanding how different species interact is a difficult but necessary task.
Why do we find primarily large pelagic predators such as tunas and billfish in the tropics, while in boreal and temperate regions large demersal species of gadoids and...
Life-history traits of comb jellies (Mnemiopsis) invaded to European waters start reproducing at a body mass 100 times less than in mother populations. This is consistent...
What are the spatial patterns of fish life history strategies in the European Seas and what are their main drivers?
We have developed a trait-based model to describe how the size of organisms and the environmental conditions interact to determine trophic strategies of unicellular plankton...