Integrating classical and microbial food web concepts: evolving views from the open-ocean tropical Pacific

Over the past half-century, and particularly the last two decades, new paradigms, perspectives and technological capabilities have greatly advanced our understanding of open-ocean pelagic ecosystems. Major new insights have come from the microbial loop concept and related discoveries, the iron limitation hypothesis and ocean time series. Focusing mainly on the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean, I review the influences of these new perspectives on classical views of food web complexity, phytoplankton regulation and diversity, and temporal dynamics.