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Rapid turnover of tissue nitrogen of primary consumers in tropical freshwaters

  • Ecophysiology
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Abstract

Stable isotopes are widely used as time-integrating tracers of trophic interactions, but turnover rates of isotopes in animal tissues remain poorly understood. Here, we report nitrogen (N) isotope turnover rates in tissues of four primary consumer species: Ancistrus triradiatus armored catfish (muscle, fins, and whole blood), Tarebia granifera snails (muscle), and Rana palmipes tadpoles (muscle) from a Venezuelan river, and Lavigeria grandis snails (muscle) from Lake Tanganyika, East Africa. Turnover was estimated from the dilution of a 15N label introduced into consumer tissues by feeding on 15N-enriched periphyton. Muscle turnover rates were rapid (0.5–3.8% per day), and were attributable to metabolic replacement of N as well as growth in catfish and snails. N turnover in catfish muscle decreased with size, and fin tissue turned over more rapidly than whole blood or muscle, though the difference was not significant. Our results indicate that stable isotope signatures of these tropical species could change markedly within weeks following a shift in diet. However, generalization across taxa or latitudes is complicated by the strong size-dependence of isotope turnover rates. The enrichment-dilution approach outlined here may facilitate measurement of isotopic turnover in a wide variety of consumers under field conditions.

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Acknowledgments

Our study design was greatly improved by suggestions from Beth Boyer, Francis Chan, and Bob Howarth. We thank Martin Genner, Bob Hall, Ellinor Michel, Steve Thomas, two anonymous reviewers, and especially David Post for comments on the manuscript. Bryon Daley, Bob Hall, Corbin Hodges, George Kazumbe, Ellinor Michel, Michelle Olsgard, and Brad Taylor provided advice and assistance in the field. Chris Solomon and Ellinor Michel provided access to unpublished data, and Art Kasson analyzed the samples at the Cornell Isotope Laboratory. We thank Steve Ellner and Francoise Vermeylen for assistance with curve fitting and model selection, and Frank Wesselingh for identifying Tarebia. Logistical support in Venezuela was provided by the Perez family, Donald Taphorn, and the Figueredo family. The staff of the Tanzanian Fisheries Research Institute and Nyanza Project kindly provided logistical support at Lake Tanganyika, and the Tanzanian Committee for Science and Technology granted permission to conduct the research. This work was funded by the NSF through grants to PBM and ASF (INT-0321443 and DEB-0321471), the Nyanza Project (ATM-0223920), and the IGERT in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Biocomplexity at Cornell University.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Peter B. McIntyre & Alexander S. Flecker

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  1. Peter B. McIntyre
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Correspondence to Peter B. McIntyre.

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Communicated by David Post

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McIntyre, P.B., Flecker, A.S. Rapid turnover of tissue nitrogen of primary consumers in tropical freshwaters. Oecologia 148, 12–21 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-005-0354-3

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