Interactive effects of light and nutrients shape phytoplankton thermal traits

These files contain the data analyses to generate the results of the study "Resource-dependence of phytoplankton thermal traits: interactive effects of light and nutrients" using R.In the folder "Data" are the data sets needed to run the R skrips.R Skript growthrates: Calculation of the growth rates using the incubation dataset.R Skript TPCs: generating the interpolated growthrates for the TPC based on GAMs (using the growthrates dataset)R Skript tpc_traits: Estimation of the thermal traits using the TPC datasetR Skript trait_stat_analysis: Statistical analyses to test for the interactive effects of light and nutrients on thermal traits, using the thermal trait dataset.R Skript manuscript figures: Rmarkdown skript to create all figures of the manuscrpt and appendixThe variable character of nature forces organisms to constantly adjust to their changing environment. In aquatic systems, phytoplankton as primary producers are exposed to a variety of different resource availabilities and temperatures. In this study, we use the freshwater species Scenedesmus armatus to focus on how resource availability shapes the sensitivity to changing temperatures. We used a gradient design of the resources light and nutrients, each with five levels, to assess their interdependent effects on numerous thermal traits, determined from TPCs ranging from 7 to 43°C. Building on previous studies that demonstrated resource-dependent temperature sensitivity in growth for a single resource type, we advance this understanding by revealing the interdependent effects of multiple resources on thermal traits, using response surfaces. We showed that most resource effects on thermal traits highly depend on the availability of other resource that can even change the direction of the effect, and that thermal traits can differ in their resource dependence. Our study provides important knowledge of how organisms cope in their changing and multifactorial environment, especially in the face of climate warming.