Stable isotope views on ecosystem function: challenging or challenged?

Integrating ontogenetic shift, growth and mortality to determine a species' ecological role from isotopic signatures

Understanding species linkages and energy transfer is a basic goal underlying any attempt at ecosystem analysis. Although the first food-web studies were based on gut contents of captured specimens, the assessment of stable isotopes, mainly δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N, has become a standard methodology for wide-range analyses in the last 30 years. Stable isotopes provide information on the trophic level of species, food-web length, and origin of organic matter ingested by consumers. In this study, we analyzed the ontogenetic variability of δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N obtained from samples of three Neotropical fish species: silver sardine (Lycengraulis grossidens, n=46), white lambari (Cyanocharax alburnus, n= 26), and the red-tail lambari (Astyanax fasciatus, n=23) in Pinguela Lagoon, southern Brazil. We developed a new metric, called the Weighted Isotopic Signature (φ ¹⁵N or φ ¹³C, ‰), that incorporates ontogenetic variability, body growth, and natural mortality into a single number.