Data from: Consumer-resource dynamics is an eco-evolutionary process in a natural plankton community

Abstract

For an important consumer-resource interaction in a natural lake (Oneida Lake, New York State) in 2015, the ecological process of grazer population growth rate was a function of both evolutionary changing mean resistance of the grazer population in response to seasonal change in the quality of their phytoplankton food, as well as ecologically changing total phytoplankton density. While rapid evolution on the time scale of ecological interactions has been shown in the past to underlie eco-evolutionary dynamics using mathematical models, laboratory microcosms and mesocosms, our study is among the very first to demonstrate the importance of these processes in nature. Cyanobacterial blooms (commonly called “harmful algal blooms” or “HABS”) are of increasing concern in waterbodies world-wide, and our study contributes to an often overlooked component of system response: rapid evolution and its feedbacks on plankton dynamics. We combine genetic identification of clonal genotypes using molecular markers (showing evolutionary clonal succession in a natural lake ecosystem) with laboratory measurements of ecologically important genetic differences among clones in their tolerance of a late-summer cyanobacterial bloom. This folder contains files with data and analyses underlying all of the figures and tables presented in a manuscript submitted for publication.