Fatty acid stable isotopes add clarity, but also complexity, to tracing energy pathways in aquatic food webs.

ABSTRACT: Tracing the flow of dietary energy sources, especially in systems with a high degree of omnivory, is an ongoing challenge in ecology. In aquatic systems, one of the persistent challenges is in differentiating between autochthonous and allochthonous energy sources to top consumers. Bulk carbon stable isotope values of aquatic and terrestrial prey often overlap, making it difficult to delineate dietary energy pathways in food webs with high allochthonous prey subsidies, such as in many northern temperate waterbodies. We conducted a feeding experiment to explore how fatty acid stable isotopes may overcome the challenge of partitioning autochthonous and allochthonous energy pathways in aquatic consumers. We fed hatchery-reared Arctic Char (Salvelinus alpinus) diets of either benthic invertebra

SUBMITTER: Chiapella AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8641385 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature