Unpacking brown food-webs: Animal trophic identity reflects rampant microbivory.

ABSTRACT: Detritivory is the dominant trophic paradigm in most terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems, yet accurate measurement of consumer trophic position within detrital (="brown") food webs has remained unresolved. Measurement of detritivore trophic position is complicated by the fact that detritus is suffused with microbes, creating a detrital complex of living and nonliving biomass. Given that microbes and metazoans are trophic analogues of each other, animals feeding on detrital complexes are ingesting other detritivores (microbes), which should elevate metazoan trophic position and should be rampant within brown food webs. We tested these hypotheses using isotopic (¹⁵N) analyses of amino acids extracted from wild and laboratory-cultured consumers. Vertebrate (fish) and invert

SUBMITTER: Steffan SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5433990 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature