Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © Inter-Research, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of Inter-Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Ecology Progress Series 310 (2006): 1-14, doi:10.3354/meps310001.
Description:
We assessed the digestibility and utilization of ice algae and phytoplankton by the shallow, subtidal benthos in Ny Ålesund (Kongsfjord) on Svalbard (79°N, 12°E) using chlorophyll a (chl a), essential fatty acids (EFAs) and stable isotopes as tracers of food consumption and assimilation. Intact benthic communities in sediment cores and individuals of dominant benthic taxa were given ice algae, phytoplankton, 13C-enriched ice algae or a no food addition control for 19 to 32 d. Ice algae and phytoplankton had significantly different isotopic signatures and relative concentrations of fatty acids. In the food addition cores, sediment concentrations of chl a and the EFA C20:5(n-3) were elevated by 80 and 93%, respectively, compared to the control after 12 h, but decreased to background levels by 19 d, suggesting that both ice algae and phytoplankton were rapidly consumed. Whole core respiration rates in the ice algae treatments were 1.4 times greater than in the other treatments within 12 h of food addition. In the ice algae treatment, both suspension and deposit feeding taxa from 3 different phyla (Mollusca, Annelida and Sipuncula) exhibited significant enrichment in δ13C values compared to the control. Deposit feeders (15% uptake), however, exhibited significantly greater uptake of the 13C-enriched ice algae tracer than suspension feeders (3% uptake). Our study demonstrates that ice algae are readily consumed and assimilated by the Arctic benthos, and may be preferentially selected by some benthic species (i.e. deposit feeders) due to their elevated EFA content, thus serving as an important component of the Arctic benthic food web.
Description:
Funding for this study came
from the National Science Foundation (Grant numbers OPP-
0514115 to W.G.A.; OPP-0222410 to L.M.C.; OPP-0222408
to M.-Y.S.; OPP0222500 to G.R.L.), the Norwegian Research
Council (Grant number 151815-720 to M.L.C.), the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute through Bates College and the
Maine Marine Research Fund.
Keywords:
Ice algae
;
Phytoplankton
;
Food quality
;
Arctic benthos
;
Climate change
;
Stable isotopes
;
Essential fatty acids
;
Svalbard
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
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