Phytoplankton colonisation experiment

An outdoor mesocosm experiment was carried out to test the effect of temperature on compositional variability in phytoplankton communities colonizing the mesocosm tanks. Samples were collected every third day and immediately analyzed using a Sysmex CyFlow Space flow cytometer. Variability was determined using a binning/fingerprinting approach with data from channels FSC and FL3.
Conclusion:
Phytoplankton emerging in the mesocosms kept at 3°C above ambient temperature exhibited higher variability than those growing in the control mesocosms. Considering current predictions on global warming, this finding can have far-reaching consequences in phytoplantkon succession in the long run. The experiment was conducted in 6 replicates.