We develop a trait-based model founded on the hypothesis that biological
systems evolve and organize to maximize entropy production by dissipating
chemical and electromagnetic potentials over longer time scales than abiotic
processes by implementing temporal strategies. A marine food web consisting of
phytoplankton, bacteria and consumer functional groups is used to explore how
temporal strategies, or the lack there of, change entropy production in a
shallow pond that receives a continuous flow of reduced organic carbon plus
inorganic nitrogen and illumination from solar radiation with diel and seasonal
dynamics. Results show that a temporal strategy that employs an explicit
circadian clock produces more entropy than a passive strategy that uses
internal carbon storage or a balanced growth strategy that requires
phytoplankton to grow with fixed stoichiometry. When the community is forced to
operate at high specific growth rates near 2 d-1, the optimization-guided model
selects for phytoplankton ecotypes that exhibit complementary for winter versus
summer environmental conditions to increase entropy production. We also present
a new type of trait-based modeling where trait values are determined by
maximizing entropy production rather than by random selection.Comment: 39 pp. including Supplementary Material, 6 Figure