Changes in water color shift competition between phytoplankton species with contrasting light-harvesting strategies

The color of many lakes and seas is changing, which is likely to affect the species composition of freshwater and marine phytoplankton communities. For example, cyanobacteria with phycobilisomes as light-harvesting antennae can effectively utilize green or orange-red light. However, recent studies show that they use blue light much less efficiently than phytoplankton species with chlorophyll-based light-harvesting complexes, even though both phytoplankton groups may absorb blue light to a similar extent. Can we advance ecological theory to predict how these differences in light-harvesting strategy affect competition between phytoplankton species? Here, we develop a new resource competition model in which the absorption and utilization efficiency of different colors of light are varied independently. The model was parameterized using monoculture experiments with a freshwater cyanobacterium and green alga, as representatives of phytoplankton with phycobilisome-based vs. chlorophyll-based light-harvesting antennae. The parameterized model was subsequently tested in a series of competition experiments. In agreement with the model predictions, the green alga won the competition in blue light whereas the cyanobacterium won in red light, irrespective of the initial relative abundances of the species. These results are in line with observed changes in phytoplankton community structure in response to lake brownification. Similarly, in marine waters, the model predicts dominance of Prochlorococcus with chlorophyll-based light-harvesting complexes in blue light but dominance of Synechococcus with phycobilisomes in green light, with a broad range of coexistence in between. These predictions agree well with the known biogeographical distributions of these two highly abundant marine taxa. Our results offer a novel trait-based approach to understand and predict competition between phytoplankton species with different photosynthetic pigments and light-harvesting strategies.