Ecology of Nitrogen Fixers in the Pacific Ocean

We know that there are many thousands of different species of phytoplankton that compete and coexist together in the ocean, but by reducing the system down to a number of key equations, Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Ben Ward and Mick Follows have been working with former graduate student Fanny Monteiro (now at the Univ. of Bristol, UK) have been able to show that iron is the dominant limiting factor controlling the distribution of nitrogen fixers in the Pacific. Read more in this Darwin Project story.