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Ocean plankton comprise organisms from viruses to fish larvae that are fundamental to ecosystem functioning and the provision of marine services such as fisheries and CO2 sequestration. The latter services are partly governed by variations in plankton community composition and the expression of traits such as body size at community-level. While community assembly has been thoroughly studied for the smaller end of the plankton size spectrum, the larger end comprises ectotherms that are often studied at the species, or group-level, rather than as communities. The body size of marine ectotherms decreases with temperature, but controls on community-level traits remain elusive, hindering the predictability of marine services provision. Here, we leverage Tara Oceans datasets to determine how zooplankton community composition and size structure varies with latitude, temperature and productivity-related covariates in the global surface ocean. Zooplankton abundance and median size decreased towards warmer and less productive environments, as a result of changes in copepod composition. However, some clades displayed the opposite relationships, which may be ascribed to alternative feeding strategies. Given that climate models predict increasingly warmed and stratified oceans, our findings suggest that zooplankton communities will shift towards smaller organisms which might weaken their contribution to the biological carbon pump, This article is contribution number 121 of Tara Oceans.-- 19 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94615-5.-- Data availability: Median ESD and abundance values by zooplankton groups are available at https://doi.org/10.17632/nwvjwccgvh.1. Zooplankton imaging datasets from the Tara Oceans expeditions are available through the collaborative web Ecotaxa application and repository under the addresses: https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/377, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/2245, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/378 for the WP2 net; https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/397, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/398, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/395 for the Bongo net; https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/415, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/409, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/408, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/411, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/412 for the Régent net. Contextual data from the Tara Oceans expedition, including those that are newly released from the Arctic Ocean, are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.875582, Tara Oceans (which includes both the Tara Oceans and Tara Oceans Polar Circle expeditions) would not exist without the leadership of the Tara Expeditions Foundation and the continuous support of 23 institutes (http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org). We further thank the commitment of the following sponsors: CNRS (in particular Groupement de Recherche GDR3280 and the Research Federation for the study of Global Ocean Systems Ecology and Evolution, FR2022/Tara Oceans-GOSEE), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Genoscope/CEA, The French Ministry of Research, and the French Government ‘Investissements d’Avenir’ programmes OCEANOMICS (ANR-11-BTBR-0008), FRANCE GENOMIQUE (ANR-10-INBS-09-08), MEMO LIFE (ANR-10-LABX-54), and PSL Research University (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02). M.C.B. acknowledges postdoc fellowships from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel of Brazil (CAPES) (99999.000487/2016-03) and the Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (FFEM). F.B. received support from ETH Zürich and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement n°SEP-210591007, With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)

This article is contribution number 121 of Tara Oceans.-- 19 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94615-5.-- Data availability: Median ESD and abundance values by zooplankton groups are available at https://doi.org/10.17632/nwvjwccgvh.1. Zooplankton imaging datasets from the Tara Oceans expeditions are available through the collaborative web Ecotaxa application and repository under the addresses: https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/377, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/2245, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/378 for the WP2 net; https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/397, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/398, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/395 for the Bongo net; https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/415, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/409, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/408, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/411, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/412 for the Régent net. Contextual data from the Tara Oceans expedition, including those that are newly released from the Arctic Ocean, are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.875582, Ocean plankton comprise organisms from viruses to fish larvae that are fundamental to ecosystem functioning and the provision of marine services such as fisheries and CO2 sequestration. The latter services are partly governed by variations in plankton community composition and the expression of traits such as body size at community-level. While community assembly has been thoroughly studied for the smaller end of the plankton size spectrum, the larger end comprises ectotherms that are often studied at the species, or group-level, rather than as communities. The body size of marine ectotherms decreases with temperature, but controls on community-level traits remain elusive, hindering the predictability of marine services provision. Here, we leverage Tara Oceans datasets to determine how zooplankton community composition and size structure varies with latitude, temperature and productivity-related covariates in the global surface ocean. Zooplankton abundance and median size decreased towards warmer and less productive environments, as a result of changes in copepod composition. However, some clades displayed the opposite relationships, which may be ascribed to alternative feeding strategies. Given that climate models predict increasingly warmed and stratified oceans, our findings suggest that zooplankton communities will shift towards smaller organisms which might weaken their contribution to the biological carbon pump, Tara Oceans (which includes both the Tara Oceans and Tara Oceans Polar Circle expeditions) would not exist without the leadership of the Tara Expeditions Foundation and the continuous support of 23 institutes (http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org). We further thank the commitment of the following sponsors: CNRS (in particular Groupement de Recherche GDR3280 and the Research Federation for the study of Global Ocean Systems Ecology and Evolution, FR2022/Tara Oceans-GOSEE), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Genoscope/CEA, The French Ministry of Research, and the French Government ‘Investissements d’Avenir’ programmes OCEANOMICS (ANR-11-BTBR-0008), FRANCE GENOMIQUE (ANR-10-INBS-09-08), MEMO LIFE (ANR-10-LABX-54), and PSL Research University (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02). M.C.B. acknowledges postdoc fellowships from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel of Brazil (CAPES) (99999.000487/2016-03) and the Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (FFEM). F.B. received support from ETH Zürich and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement n°SEP-210591007, With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)

Ocean plankton comprise organisms from viruses to fish larvae that are fundamental to ecosystem functioning and the provision of marine services such as fisheries and CO

Ocean plankton comprise organisms from viruses to fish larvae that are fundamental to ecosystem functioning and the provision of marine services such as fisheries and CO2 sequestration. The latter services are partly governed by variations in plankton community composition and the expression of traits such as body size at community-level. While community assembly has been thoroughly studied for the smaller end of the plankton size spectrum, the larger end comprises ectotherms that are often studied at the species, or group-level, rather than as communities. The body size of marine ectotherms decreases with temperature, but controls on community-level traits remain elusive, hindering the predictability of marine services provision. Here, we leverage Tara Oceans datasets to determine how zooplankton community composition and size structure varies with latitude, temperature and productivity-related covariates in the global surface ocean. Zooplankton abundance and median size decreased towards warmer and less productive environments, as a result of changes in copepod composition. However, some clades displayed the opposite relationships, which may be ascribed to alternative feeding strategies. Given that climate models predict increasingly warmed and stratified oceans, our findings suggest that zooplankton communities will shift towards smaller organisms which might weaken their contribution to the biological carbon pump., Scientific Reports, 11 (1), ISSN:2045-2322