ArticleOecologia2008
Tracing carbon flow in an arctic marine food web using fatty acid-stable isotope analysis.
Article in Oecologia, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 208 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Carbon Isotope Ratios of Plasma and RBC Fatty Acids Identify Meat Consumers in a 12-Week Inpatient Feeding Study of 32 Men.The Journal of nutrition · 2023Trial
- Article
- Efficient recovery and DNA extraction for algae-associated microbial communities.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Resource partitioning of a Mexican clam in species-poor Baltic Sea sediments indicates the existence of a vacant trophic niche.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Biomolecular profiles of Arctic sea-ice diatoms highlight the role of under-ice light in cellular energy allocation.ISME communications · 2024Article
- Year-round utilization of sea ice-associated carbon in Arctic ecosystems.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Shotgun Lipidomics for the Determination of Phospholipid and Eicosanoid Profiles in Atlantic Salmon (International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Fatty acid stable isotopes add clarity, but also complexity, to tracing energy pathways in aquatic food webs.Ecosphere (Washington, D.C) · 2021Article
- Stable isotopes of fatty acids: current and future perspectives for advancing trophic ecology.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- The potential of fatty acid isotopes to trace trophic transfer in aquatic food-webs.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Temporal and spatial trends in marine carbon isotopes in the Arctic Ocean and implications for food web studies.Global change biology · 2019Article
- Origin of Carbon and Essential Fatty Acids in Higher Trophic Level Fish in Headwater Stream Food Webs.Biomolecules · 2019Article
- Metabolism and foraging strategies of mid-latitude mesozooplankton during cyanobacterial blooms as revealed by fatty acids, amino acids, and their stable carbon isotopes.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Variable sea-ice conditions influence trophic dynamics in an Arctic community of marine top predators.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Transfer of cyanobacterial carbon to a higher trophic-level fish community in a eutrophic lake food web: fatty acid and stable isotope analyses.Oecologia · 2018Article
- Optimizing long chain-polyunsaturated fatty acid synthesis in salmonids by balancing dietary inputs.PloS one · 2018Article
- Resource partitioning between Pacific walruses and bearded seals in the Alaska Arctic and sub-Arctic.Oecologia · 2017Article
- Fractionation of the stable carbon isotope ratio of essential fatty acids in zebrafish Danio rerio and mud snails Bellamya chinensis.Oecologia · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Global warming and the loss of sea ice threaten to alter patterns of productivity in arctic marine ecosystems because of a likely decline in primary productivity by sea ice algae. Estimates of the contribution of ice algae to total primary production range widely, from just 3 to >50%, and the importance of ice algae to higher trophic levels remains unknown. To help answer this question, we investigated a novel approach to food web studies by combining the two established methods of stable isotope analysis and fatty acid (FA) analysis--we determined the C isotopic composition of individual diatom FA and traced these biomarkers in consumers. Samples were collected near Barrow, Alaska and included ice algae, pelagic phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, seabirds, pinnipeds and cetaceans. Ice algae and pelagic phytoplankton had distinctive overall FA signatures and clear differences in delta(13)C for two specific diatom FA biomarkers: 16:4n-1 (-24.0+/-2.4 and -30.7+/-0.8 per thousand, respectively) and 20:5n-3 (-18.3+/-2.0 and -26.9+/-0.7 per thousand, respectively). Nearly all delta(13)C values of these two FA in consumers fell between the two stable isotopic end members. A mass balance equation indicated that FA material derived from ice algae, compared to pelagic diatoms, averaged 71% (44-107%) in consumers based on delta(13)C values of 16:4n-1, but only 24% (0-61%) based on 20:5n-3. Our estimates derived from 16:4n-1, which is produced only by diatoms, probably best represented the contribution of ice algae relative to pelagic diatoms. However, many types of algae produce 20:5n-3, so the lower value derived from it likely represented a more realistic estimate of the proportion of ice algae material relative to all other types of phytoplankton. These preliminary results demonstrate the potential value of compound-specific isotope analysis of marine lipids to trace C flow through marine food webs and provide a foundation for future work.
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