19
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      High-resolution food webs based on nitrogen isotopic composition of amino acids

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Food webs are known to have myriad trophic links between resource and consumer species. While herbivores have well-understood trophic tendencies, the difficulties associated with characterizing the trophic positions of higher-order consumers have remained a major problem in food web ecology. To better understand trophic linkages in food webs, analysis of the stable nitrogen isotopic composition of amino acids has been introduced as a potential means of providing accurate trophic position estimates. In the present study, we employ this method to estimate the trophic positions of 200 free-roaming organisms, representing 39 species in coastal marine (a stony shore) and 38 species in terrestrial (a fruit farm) environments. Based on the trophic positions from the isotopic composition of amino acids, we are able to resolve the trophic structure of these complex food webs. Our approach reveals a high degree of trophic omnivory (i.e., noninteger trophic positions) among carnivorous species such as marine fish and terrestrial hornets.This information not only clarifies the trophic tendencies of species within their respective communities, but also suggests that trophic omnivory may be common in these webs.

          Related collections

          Most cited references87

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Comparison of aquatic food chains using nitrogen isotopes.

          Recent studies have shown the utility of delta(15)N to model trophic structure and contaminant bioaccumulation in aquatic food webs. However, cross-system comparisons in delta(15)N can be complicated by differences in delta(15)N at the base of the food chain. Such baseline variation in delta(15)N is difficult to resolve using plankton because of the large temporal variability in the delta(15)N of small organisms that have fast nitrogen turnover. Comparisons using large primary consumers, which have stable tissue isotopic signatures because of their slower nitrogen turnover, show that delta(15)N increases markedly with the human population density in the lake watershed. This shift in delta(15)N likely reflects the high delta(15)N of human sewage. Correcting for this baseline variation in delta(15)N, we report that, contrary to expectations based on previous food-web analysis, the food chains leading up to fish varied by about only one trophic level among the 40 lakes studied. Our results also suggest that the delta(15)N signatures of nitrogen at the base of the food chain will provide a useful tool in the assessment of anthropogenic nutrient inputs.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            PRIMARY CONSUMER δ13C AND δ15N AND THE TROPHIC POSITION OF AQUATIC CONSUMERS

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Complex Trophic Interactions in Deserts: An Empirical Critique of Food-Web Theory

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Ecol Evol
                Ecol Evol
                ece3
                Ecology and Evolution
                Blackwell Publishing Ltd (Oxford, UK )
                2045-7758
                2045-7758
                June 2014
                17 May 2014
                : 4
                : 12
                : 2423-2449
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka, 237-0061, Japan
                [2 ]USDA-ARS Vegetable Crops Research Unit, 1630 Linden Dr., Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin Madison, WI, 53706, USA
                Author notes
                Yoshito Chikaraishi, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka, 237-0061, Japan. Tel: +81-46-867-9778; Fax: +81-46-867-9775; E-mail: ychikaraishi@ 123456jamstec.go.jp

                Funding Information This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the JSPS (Y.C., N.O.O., M.T., and N.O.) and USDA-ARS appropriated funds to SAS (3655-21220-001-00D).

                Article
                10.1002/ece3.1103
                4203290
                25360278
                4615ac76-3861-464f-b106-8f6de2945e98
                © 2014 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

                This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 10 December 2013
                : 09 April 2014
                : 15 April 2014
                Categories
                Original Research

                Evolutionary Biology
                carnivores,compound-specific isotope analysis,ecosystem,herbivores,omnivores,predators,primary producers,trophic position

                Comments

                Comment on this article