Biodiversity of plankton by species oscillations and chaos

Jef Huisman () and Franz J. Weissing
Additional contact information
Jef Huisman: Biological Sciences, Stanford University
Franz J. Weissing: University of Groningen, PO Box 14

Nature, 1999, vol. 402, issue 6760, 407-410

Abstract: Abstract Biodiversity has both fascinated and puzzled biologists1. In aquatic ecosystems, the biodiversity puzzle is particularly troublesome, and known as the ‘paradox of the plankton’2. Competition theory predicts that, at equilibrium, the number of coexisting species cannot exceed the number of limiting resources3,4,5,6. For phytoplankton, only a few resources are potentially limiting: nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon, iron, light, inorganic carbon, and sometimes a few trace metals or vitamins. However, in natural waters dozens of phytoplankton species coexist2. Here we offer a solution to the plankton paradox. First, we show that resource competition models6,7,8,9,10 can generate oscillations and chaos when species compete for three or more resources. Second, we show that these oscillations and chaotic fluctuations in species abundances allow the coexistence of many species on a handful of resources. This model of planktonic biodiversity may be broadly applicable to the biodiversity of many ecosystems.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/46540 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:402:y:1999:i:6760:d:10.1038_46540

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/46540

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().