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Dual isotope assessment of trophic dynamics of an intertidal infaunal community with seasonal shifts in food sources

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Abstract

Stable isotopes are widely used to better understand dietary contributions and trophic interactions in benthic ecosystems. However, the traditional δ13C–δ15N bi-plots can only depict food-web structure for a single time period or space location. Various statistical approaches have now been developed to identify food-web changes in temporal or spatial scale. In the present study, three community-level statistical methods, including circular statistics, Layman et al.’s metrics and Bayesian Ellipses, were applied to compare natural abundance stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from primary producers, meiofauna (nematodes and copepods), and macrofauna (polychaetes) in an intertidal area between summer and winter. Bayesian mixing model was also used to determine the food source contributions of consumers. In summer, data suggested that benthic microalgae were a dominant food source for most consumers, except for nematode Spilophorella sp. which mainly relied on seagrass detritus. While in winter, there was a significant increase in reliance on seagrass-based carbon for the consumers. The trophic positions of polychaete Eunice sp. and nematode Ditlevsenella sp. also differed between summer and winter, suggesting that they could change their feeding habits and behaviour according to time and availability of food. Using community-based statistics to quantitatively analyze stable isotope data can thus elucidate changes in food-web structure. In addition, considerable variations in food source utilization and trophic level for the same genus or species may imply that the feeding ecology of benthic infauna should be interpreted with caution and cannot be relied on buccal morphology alone.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Xiaoshou Liu for his advice on meiofaunal sampling and Ankang Teng for his technical assistance in the field and laboratory. Constructive comments from reviewers are much appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, China

    Wen-Zhe Xu

  2. Department of Biology and Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Wen-Zhe Xu, Siu Gin Cheung & Paul K. S. Shin

  3. College of Marine Life Science, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

    Zhi-Nan Zhang

  4. State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Siu Gin Cheung & Paul K. S. Shin

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  1. Wen-Zhe Xu
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  2. Siu Gin Cheung
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  4. Paul K. S. Shin
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Correspondence to Paul K. S. Shin.

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This study is supported by a General Research Fund (Project No. CityU 161009) from the Research Grants Council of the HKSAR Government and research fund from the Foundation of Tianjin Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Chemistry (Tianjin University of Science and Technology), People’s Republic of China (No. 201506).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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Xu, WZ., Cheung, S.G., Zhang, ZN. et al. Dual isotope assessment of trophic dynamics of an intertidal infaunal community with seasonal shifts in food sources. Mar Biol 165, 21 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-017-3278-7

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