Thanks to @vojsavagjoni.bsky.social for leading us!

Conclusion: Energy use isn't size-independent when environments change and undergoes temporal change. Mediated by species interactions, temperature and biodiversity jointly shape community size structure. This has implications for predicting ecological responses to global warming.

How do these responses change over time? The slope stayed near -0.75 for half of the experiment, then deviated to become shallower. Comparing real communities vs. "no interaction" controls showed that species interactions - not just individual physiology - drive these changing patterns over time.

In species-rich communities, warming favored small protists much more than large ones, steepening the size-abundance slope. At low richness? Temperature had minimal effect. This suggests that complex species interactions amplify thermal effects on community size structure.

Metabolic theory predicts a -0.75 slope: smaller organisms are more abundant. We confirmed this overall pattern across 53 protist communities spanning 1 to 6 species and 15 to 25°C. But here's the caveat: temperature and richness INTERACT to modify this relationship, not just shift the intercept.

Will check it out 😍

Ciliates! Here is some related work on our model system: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Please apply, if you are interested in experimental ecology involving microorganisms, 3D tracking, and bridging between data and functional response theory.

The project involves a close collaboration with Prof. Benjamin Martin (University of Amsterdam) and Prof. Andrew Hein (Cornell University).

scholar.google.de/citations?hl...
Dear Timothée, please add me to the feed. Thanks!

Hi Billur, exciting pack, could you please add me? Thanks!