Progress since the first meeting

Following the meeting in December 2007 the manuscript started at that meeting, which compares functional attributes of large unicellular, colonial and multicellular members of the phytoplankton, was suggested as a possible Tansley Review to the editors of The New Phytologist. This offer was accepted, and the manuscript was completed and submitted just before the July 2008 meeting.

The model discussed at the first meeting had been further developed by Kevin Flynn, with some input from other WG members, so that it could be a major item of discussion at the second meeting.

Progress at, and since, the second meeting

Kevin Flynn’s model was a major item of discussion at the second meeting. Kevin introduced it, other working group members commented on it, and Kevin illustrated outcomes of the model using suggestions from the working group. Since the meeting Kevin has emailed an explanation (excluding the computer code!) of the model and its assumptions, and the members of the working group have provided comments.

A second outcome of the second meeting was the production of an outline of a manuscript on the extent to which allometry and stoichiometry inform our understanding of the effects of global environmental change on phytoplankton ecology and evolution.

The other main output of the meeting was the draft of an additional manuscript critiquing the Growth Rate Hypothesis in the context of photosynthetic organisms and, especially, phytoplankton.

Last updated September 2008