Fig. 1

Growth curves of red tide diatom S. costatum, red tide dinoflagellate A. carterae, P. donghaiense, and K. mikimotoi, model diatom P. tricornutum, T. pseudonana and model dinoflagellate D. Symbiodinium under a mFL after the addition of 1 min of bright light (800 μmol photons m^− 2 s^− 1) to every 5 min of low light (80 μmol photons m^− 2 s^− 1) and b sFL after the addition of 1 min of stronger light (2000 μmol photons m^− 2 s^− 1) to every 5 min of low light (20 μmol photons m^− 2 s^− 1). Culture experiments were repeated three times