Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oecologia 180 (2016): 809-821, doi:10.1007/s00442-015-3475-3.
Description:
Coral reefs support spectacularly productive and diverse communities in tropical and sub26
tropical waters throughout the world’s oceans. Debate continues, however, on the degree to
which reef biomass is supported by new water column production, benthic primary production,
and recycled detrital carbon. We coupled compound-specific δ13C analyses with Bayesian
mixing models to quantify carbon flow from primary producers to coral reef fishes across
multiple feeding guilds and trophic positions in the Red Sea. Analyses of reef fishes with
putative diets composed primarily of zooplankton (Amblyglyphidodon indicus), benthic
macroalgae (Stegastes nigricans), reef-associated detritus (Ctenochaetus striatus), and coral
tissue (Chaetodon trifascialis) confirmed that δ13C values of essential amino acids from all
baseline carbon sources were both isotopically diagnostic and accurately recorded in consumer
tissues. While all four source end-members contributed to the production of coral reef fishes in
our study, a single source end-member often dominated dietary carbon assimilation of a given
species, even for highly mobile, generalist top predators. Microbially-reworked detritus was an
important secondary carbon source for most species. Seascape configuration played an important
role in structuring resource utilization patterns. For instance, L. ehrenbergii, showed a significant
shift from a benthic macroalgal food web on shelf reefs (71 ± 13% of dietary carbon) to a
phytoplankton-based food web (72 ± 11%) on oceanic reefs. Our work provides insights into the
roles that diverse carbon sources play in the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems and
illustrates a powerful fingerprinting method to develop and test nutritional frameworks for
understanding resource utilization.
Description:
This research was based on work supported by Awards USA 00002 and KSA 00011 from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST); additional funding was provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a KAUST-WHOI award (SPCF-7000000104), and KAUST baseline research funds.
Description:
2016-11-21
Keywords:
Amino acids
;
Bayesian mixing model
;
Diet
;
Fish
;
Red Sea
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
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