Supporting Information
Figure Legends
Figure S1. Effect of temperature on the size scaling of growth rate for the whole dataset from
Thomas et al.’s (2012). Similar to Fig. 3 but without restricting to only those species that have
been sequenced. Panels on the left show the size scaling of growth (log10 transformed) for
predicted growth rates at (a) 30ºC and (b) 12ºC. Grey dots show all data points whereas colors
dots show the corresponding averaged growth rates for each size bin as used in the colour
matrix plot (c). The black solid line corresponds to a linear fit. The black dashed line
corresponds to a quadratic fit. Linear fit in (a): log10() = 0.04 x log10(BV) -0.51; ANOVA:
r2= 0.003, n = 100, p-value = 0.57. Linear fit in (b): log10() = -0.11 x log10(BV) -0.13;
ANOVA: r2= 0.09, n = 141, p-value < 0.001. Quadratic fits are shown in the panels. (c) The
colour matrix shows for each temperature from 2 to 33ºC (y axis) the averaged growth rate at
each cell size bin (x axis). The p-value column shows the degree of significance of the
quadratic fit for the log10- log10 relationship between growth rate and cell size using all data
points (no data binning). When the quadratic term is not significant, i.e. p-value>0.05 the box
appears empty. (*) indicates p-value<0.05, (**) indicates p-value<0.01 and (***) pvalue<0.001. The right panel shows the ratio between the r-squared of the quadratic term and
the r-squared of the linear term for the different fits at each temperature, i.e., the proportional
increase in explained variance of the quadratic fit in relation to the linear fit.
Figure S2. Size scaling of growth rate for those species with optimum temperatures between
23 and 28ºC in Thomas et al.’s (2012) data (big grey dots). The black solid line corresponds
to a linear fit (log10() = 0.005 x log10(BV) -0.41 ANOVA: r2= 0.001, n = 43, p-value = 0.83).
The black dashed line correspond to a quadratic fit (log10() = -0.04 x [log10(BV)]2 + 0.14 x
log10(BV) -0.38; ANOVA: r2= 0.22, n = 43, p-value < 0.005). Small grey dots on the
background show the whole dataset.
1
Figure S3. Size scaling of growth rate for López-Urrutia et al.’s (2006) data (as used by Chen
and Liu (2011)) to demonstrate the existence of unimodal scaling. Here several measurements
of growth rate at different temperatures are provided for each species together with cell
volume. The difference between Thomas et al. (2012) and López-Urrutia et al. (2006) is that
the latter only considers the exponential part of the growth response to temperature and
includes also the effects of irradiance. Following the same procedure as for Thomas et al.
(2012), we restricted the dataset to only those species that have been sequenced and averaged
thermal responses were calculated for each strain in the case we had several thermal growth
response curves recorded. Hence, the dataset was reduced from 1063 to 49 data points, one
for each sequenced strain. Black solid line is the linear fit (log10() = -0.03 x log10(BV) +
5.10; ANOVA: r2 = 0.04, n = 49, p-value = 0.17), black dashed line is quadratic fit (log10() =
-0.02 x [log10(BV)]2 +0.10 x log10(BV) +4.97; ANOVA: r2 = 0.17, n = 49, p-value < 0.01),
grey solid line is the linear PGLS fit (log10() = -0.06 x log10(BV) + 4.96, p-value < 0.01,
λ=0.92) and grey dashed line is the quadratic PGLS fit (log10() = -0.02 x [log10(BV)]2 + 0.06
x log10(BV) +4.95, p-value =0.06 ,λ=0.91). Grey dots show species composing the
picophytoplankton.
Figure S4. Phylogenetic tree for Thomas et al.’s (2012) data.
Figure S5. Phylogenetic tree for López-Urrutia et al.’s (2006) data.
2
Table 1: Cell size references for the species used in the study for the compilation of Thomas
et al. (2012).
Species Name
Akashiwo sanguinea
Alexandrium catenella
Alexandrium fundyense
Alexandrium minutum
Alexandrium monilatum
Alexandrium ostenfeldii
Alexandrium tamarense
Amphiprora sp.
Apedinella radians
Asterionellopsis glacialis
Calcidiscus leptoporus
Chaetoceros didymus
Chaetoceros lorenzianus Bermuda
Chaetoceros pseudocurvisetus
Chaetoceros sp.
Chattonella marina
Chattonella marina var. antiqua
Chlamydomonas
Chlorella sp.
Chrysochromulina polylepis
Coccolithus pelagicus ssp. Braarudii
Cochlodinium polykrikoides
Conticribra guillardii
Corethron pennatum
Cryptomonas sp.
Cylindrotheca closterium
Dactyliosolen fragilissimus
Detonula confervacea
Dunaliella tertiolecta
Emiliania huxleyi
Eucampia zodiacus
Eutreptiella gymnastica
Fibrocapsa japonica
Fragilariopsis cylindrus
Fragilariopsis kerguelensis
Gephyrocapsa oceanica
Gephyrocapsa oceanica var. typica
Gymnodinium aureolum
Gymnodinium catenatum
Gymnodinium corollarium
Gymnodinium (probably G. simplex)
Helicotheca tamesis
Heterocapsa rotundata
Heteromastix pyriformis
Heterosigma akashiwo
Isochrysis galbana
Isochrysis sp.
Karenia brevis
Source
Olenina et al. (2006)
http://species-identification.org
http://species-identification.org
Marañón et al. (2013)
http://species-identification.org
Olenina et al. (2006)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Leblanc et al. Leblanc et al. (2012)
http://www.eos.ubc.ca/research/phytoplankton
Band-Schmidt et al. (2012)
Band-Schmidt et al. (2012)
Olenina et al. (2006)
http://diatom.ansp.org/taxaservice/ShowList.aspx
Olenina et al. (2006)
http://nannotax.org
http://species-identification.org
Olenina et al. (2006)
Timmermans et al. (2004)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
http://www.algaebase.org
Marañón et al. (2013)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
Timmermans (2010)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Marañón et al. (2013)
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://species-identification.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/phytoplankton/guide/index.aspx
Olenina et al. (2006)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Liu and Lin (2001)
http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec
3
Species Name
Karenia mikimotoi
Karlodinium veneficum
Klebsormidium
Leptocylindrus danicus
Micromonas pusilla
Nannochloris (possibly Stichococcus) sp.
Neoceratium furca
Neoceratium fusus
Neoceratium lineatum
Neoceratium tripos
Nitzschia frigida
Nitzschia paleacea
Odontella mobiliensis
Olisthodiscus luteus
Peridinium sp.
Phaeocystis antarctica
Phaeocystis globosa
Phaeocystis pouchetii
Phaeodactylum tricornutum
Prochlorococcus marinus
Prorocentrum gracile
Prorocentrum micans
Prorocentrum minimum
Prymnesium parvum f. patelliferum
Prymnesium parvum
Pseudo-nitzschia multiseries
Pseudopedinella pyriformis
Pyramimonas disomata
Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum
Rhizosolenia setigera
Scrippsiella trochoidea
Skeletonema ardens
Skeletonema costatum
Skeletonema japonicum
Skeletonema marinoi dohrnii complex
Skeletonema menzelii
Skeletonema pseudocostatum
Skeletonema tropicum
Stellarima microtrias
Stephanopyxis palmeriana
Stichococcus (possibly S. cylindricus)
Synechococcus
Synedra sp.
Tetraselmis sp.
Thalassionema nitzschioides
Thalassiosira nordenskioeldii
Thalassiosira pseudonana
Thalassiosira rotula
Trichodesmium erythraeum
Source
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
Galimany et al. (2007)
Škaloud (2006)
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
https://ncma.bigelow.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Leadbeater (1969)
http://diatom.ansp.org/taxaservice/ShowList.aspx
Zingone (1999)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Marañón et al. (2013)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
Green et al. (1982)
Green et al. (1982)
http://diatom.ansp.org/taxaservice/ShowList.aspx
http://www.smhi.se
http://www.smhi.se
http://species-identification.org
Olenina et al. (2006)
Olenina et al. (2006)
https://ncma.bigelow.org
Marañón et al. (2013)
https://ncma.bigelow.org/
https://ncma.bigelow.org
https://ncma.bigelow.org
https://ncma.bigelow.org
https://ncma.bigelow.org/
http://www.smhi.se
http://www.serc.si.edu/labs/phytoplankton/guide/index.aspx
https://ncma.bigelow.org
Marañón et al. (2013)
http://diatom.ansp.org/taxaservice/ShowList.aspx
http://diatom.ansp.org/taxaservice/ShowList.aspx
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
http://nordicmicroalgae.org
Marañón et al. (2013)
Gárate-Lizárraga (2012)
4
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