THE ROLE OF TECTONIC, CLIMATIC, AND BIOTIC BOUNDARY CONDITIONS IN CONTROLLING PLANKTON DIVERSITY

Disentangling the primary controls on marine ecosystem evolution and dynamics is confusticated by the complex and often correlated interplay of numerous abiotic and biotic factors in the Earth system. We previously created a series of highly idealized ‘worlds’ in the Earth system model cGEnIE to examine how continental configuration, global temperature, atmospheric oxygenation, and biological pump efficiency interact to affect the availability of oxic marine benthic habitat. Here we use these same modeled worlds but now assess how these boundary conditions affect emergent pelagic community structure and latitudinal diversity gradients in the ocean. For this, we use EcoGEnIE – an ecological plankton model that assigns ecophysiological traits to any number of different-sized plankton species and can be used to model pelagic ecosystems. Our simplified model allows us to replay the tape of life with different boundary conditions, and consider the relative influence of each on the emerging gradients and patterns in pelagic ecosystems.