Bortom ´Överallt´: Uppklara spridningsgränser för mångfald av vattenplankton

Despite the recognition of the role of spatial, temporal and stochastic factors, microbial community ecology continues to be guided by the principle of “everything is everywhere but the environment selects”.

However, our understanding of the actual mechanisms behind this process are limited, particularly in the case of complex communities such as aquatic plankton.Species sorting, as an umbrella term, encompasses eco-evolutionary, external, and internal species recruitment processes.

However, their precise contribution and significance to planktonic diversity remain unclear.BEDDCAPD aims to disentangle the contribution and role of these elements to better understand planktonic community assembly.

To do so, we will conduct experiments using soda pans which as unique extreme ecosystems provide easy to manipulate islands habitats.The project comprises of 4 interconnected WPs:Experimental evolution experiment to measure eco-evolutionary processesIn situ transplant experiment to assess internal recruitmentMesocosm experiment to estimate the contribution of external recruitment sources (sediment resuspension, atmospheric deposition, zoochory)Two large datasets (global soda lake survey and Swedish eDNA-based aquatic monitoring) will be evaluated by null model frameworks in the context of the results of WP1-3.Ultimately, BEDDCAPD will improve our understanding of planktonic community assembly on multiple organismal levels, and expand our ability to guide conservation biology efforts.