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Andrews AJ, Orton D, Onar V, Addis P, Tinti F, Alexander M. Isotopic life-history signatures are retained in modern and ancient Atlantic bluefin tuna vertebrae. JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY 2023. [PMID: 37185985 DOI: 10.1111/jfb.15417] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2022] [Accepted: 04/23/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
Isotopic, tagging and diet studies of modern-day teleosts lack the ability to contextualise life-histories and trophic dynamics with a historical perspective, when exploitation rates were lower and climatic conditions differed. Isotopic analysis of vertebrae, the most plentiful hard-part in archaeological and museum collections, can potentially fill this data-gap. Chemical signatures of habitat and diet use during growth are retained by vertebrae during bone formation. However, to fulfil their potential to reveal life-history and trophic dynamics, we need a better understanding of the time-frame recorded by vertebrae, currently lacking due to a poor understanding of fish bone remodelling. To address this issue, we serially-sectioned four vertebral centra of the highly migratory Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus; BFT) captured off Sardinia (Italy) and analysed their isotopic composition. We show how carbon (δ13 C), nitrogen (δ15 N) and sulfur (δ34 S) isotope values can vary significantly across BFT vertebrae growth-axes, revealing patterning in dietary life-histories. Further, we find similar patterns are revealed through incremental isotopic analysis of inner and outer vertebrae centra samples from thirteen archaeological BFT vertebrae dating between the 9th -13th century CE. Our results indicate that multi-year foraging signatures are retained in vertebrae and allow for the study of life-histories in both modern and paleo-environments. These novel methods can be extended across teleost taxa owing to their potential to inform management and conservation on how teleost trophic dynamics change over time and what their long-term environmental, ecological, and anthropological drivers are.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam J Andrews
- Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Campus of Ravenna, Ravenna, Italy
| | - David Orton
- BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, U.K
| | - Vedat Onar
- Osteoarchaeology Practice and Research Centre and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Istanbul, Turkey
| | - Piero Addis
- Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy
| | - Fausto Tinti
- Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Campus of Ravenna, Ravenna, Italy
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Wilson T, Szpak P. Acidification does not alter the stable isotope composition of bone collagen. PeerJ 2022; 10:e13593. [PMID: 35722259 PMCID: PMC9205305 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.13593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Accepted: 05/25/2022] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
In this study, we compared the elemental and isotopic composition of modern and ancient bone samples pre-treated using different demineralization agents with acidic and neutral pH. The purpose of our research was to examine if demineralization using a mineral acid such as hydrochloric acid (HCl) significantly alters the δ 15N and δ 13C values of bone collagen. Evidence from the elemental and amino acid composition of the samples were incorporated alongside isotopic compositions to provide a holistic view of the effect of demineralization agents on the composition of bone collagen. The stable isotope compositions of collagen extracts were also compared against equivalent whole bone samples to assess whether whole bone has a stable isotope composition that is comparable to collagen demineralized with a neutral agent. Our results demonstrate that bone demineralization using either ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or HCl yields collagen extracts with stable isotope compositions that are not significantly different, indicating that mineral acid does not alter δ 15N and δ 13C values of bone collagen. The results comparing whole bone and extracted collagen stable isotope compositions indicate that whole bone cannot be used as an effective replacement for bone collagen due to the significantly different stable isotope compositions between these sample materials. In ecological and archaeological studies performing stable isotope analysis on bone, sample pre-treatment to isolate collagen is a necessity to obtain the most reliable and reproducible isotopic measurements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tess Wilson
- Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada,Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Paul Szpak
- Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
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A millennium of trophic stability in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua): transition to a lower and converging trophic niche in modern times. Sci Rep 2021; 11:12681. [PMID: 34135440 PMCID: PMC8209007 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-92243-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2019] [Accepted: 06/04/2021] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Stable isotope analyses of zooarchaeological material can be used to examine ecological variability in exploited species at centennial to millennial scales. Climate change is a notable driver of marine ecosystem change, although historical fishing is also likely to have impacted past marine systems. Fishing removes the oldest and largest individuals and may thereby result in shorter trophic pathways and reduced niche width of predatory fish species. In the current study we examine the trophic niche of Atlantic cod, haddock and Atlantic wolffish, in the last millennium using δ13C and δ15N values of bone collagen. We report a lower trophic level of Atlantic cod and haddock but higher level of wolffish in present times, following centuries at consistent and higher trophic levels of Atlantic cod. This results in a concurrent converging trophic niche of the demersal fish. We suggest that the current data set provides a valuable historical baseline facilitating interpretation of current variability in the trophic ecology of northern demersal fish.
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Cardona L, Lloret-Lloret E, Moles J, Avila C. Latitudinal changes in the trophic structure of benthic coastal food webs along the Antarctic Peninsula. MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2021; 167:105290. [PMID: 33684658 DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2021.105290] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2020] [Revised: 02/16/2021] [Accepted: 02/23/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Stable isotopes of C and N have been used to assess the effect of the duration of the sea ice season on the structure of benthic, Antarctic coastal food webs. Samples of suspended particulate organic matter, macroalgae and macroinvertebrates were collected at five subtidal rocky sites across a latitudinal gradient along the western Antarctic Peninsula and among the South Shetland Islands. We tested the hypotheses that trophic positions of omnivores decrease, and food web structure becomes more redundant at higher latitudes. A latitudinal shift in the isotope baseline was detected for both δ13C and δ15N, but the trophic positions of macroinvertebrates and their relative positions along the δ13C axis and were basically constant across sites, even after rescaling stable isotope ratios to account for shifts in the baseline. Although the northernmost and southernmost study sites differed significantly in most of the metrics of the food web structure, changes with latitude and the duration of the sea ice season were non-monotonic. Highly productive phytoplankton blooms during the ice-free season at Esperanza Bay and Rothera Point may explain the observed pattern, as they result in a massive supply of planktonic organic matter to the detritus bank in the seabed and, hence, shorten the C range and increase trophic redundancy. If this hypothesis is correct, the intensity of the summer phytoplankton bloom can be as relevant for the structure of the benthic marine food web as the duration of the sea ice season.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luis Cardona
- IRBio, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 643, 08029, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
| | - Elena Lloret-Lloret
- IRBio, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 643, 08029, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
| | - Juan Moles
- SNSB-Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Section Mollusca, Münchhausenstrasse 21, 81247, Munich, Germany
| | - Conxita Avila
- IRBio, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 643, 08029, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
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Guiry EJ, Hunt BPV. Integrating fish scale and bone isotopic compositions for 'deep time' retrospective studies. MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2020; 160:104982. [PMID: 32907720 DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2020.104982] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2020] [Revised: 03/27/2020] [Accepted: 04/01/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Isotopic studies of archived fish scales have tremendous potential to develop long-term retrospectives that provide important insights into how humans have altered aquatic ecosystems. However, fish specimens in museum archives and other repositories typically date to time periods when the impacts of industrial societies may have already caused profound environmental changes. Archaeological fish bones offer an opportunity to bridge this key temporal gap by providing samples spanning from the recent past to as far back as the Pleistocene. Collagen is the primary protein component of both fish scale and bone, but the comparability of isotopic compositions from these tissues has not been established experimentally. To lay the framework for integrating isotopic datasets from these tissues, we compare δ13C and δ15N of bone and scale collagen, as well as other tissues, from fish with life-time controlled diets. Results show that while there is no difference in δ13C between scale and bone collagen, there may be a very slight but meaningful inter-tissue offset in δ15N (<0.3‰). We discuss potential sources of δ15N variation in scale and bone collagen measurements. Because there is no difference in scale and bone δ13C, and the observed offset in δ15N is very small (less than analytical uncertainty in many studies), our findings demonstrate that collagen isotopic compositions from these tissues should be directly comparable when integrating datasets from modern and ancient samples to build more powerful, millennium-scale isotopic times series. In linking isotopic compositions of collagen from modern, historical (scales), and archaeological (bones) fish, our findings open the way for more nuanced contextualization of how ecosystems functioned prior to large-scale exploitation and how they have responded to mounting anthropogenic pressures in the intervening centuries.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric J Guiry
- Department of Anthropology, Trent University, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, ON, K9L 0G2, Canada; School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE17RH, UK; Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 6306 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada.
| | - Brian P V Hunt
- Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory, 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada; Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, 2020 - 2207 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada; Hakai Institute, PO Box 309, Heriot Bay, BC, V0P 1H0, Canada
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Guiry EJ, Szpak P. Quality control for modern bone collagen stable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements. Methods Ecol Evol 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.13433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Eric J. Guiry
- Department of Anthropology Trent University Peterborough ON Canada
- School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester Leicester UK
| | - Paul Szpak
- Department of Anthropology Trent University Peterborough ON Canada
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Bas M, Salemme M, Green EJ, Santiago F, Speller C, Álvarez M, Briz I Godino I, Cardona L. Predicting habitat use by the Argentine hake Merluccius hubbsi in a warmer world: inferences from the Middle Holocene. Oecologia 2020; 193:461-474. [PMID: 32424465 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-020-04667-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2019] [Accepted: 05/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Fish skeletal remains recovered from two archaeological sites dated in the Middle Holocene of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) were analysed to describe habitat use patterns by hake in the past and predict changes in a warmer world. Mitochondrial DNA was successfully extracted and amplified from 42 out of 45 first vertebra from ancient hake and phylogenetic analysis assigned all haplotypes to Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi). According to osteometry, the Argentine hake recovered from the archaeological site were likely adults ranging 37.2-58.1 cm in standard length. C and N stable isotope analysis showed that currently Argentine hake use foraging grounds deeper than those of Patagonian blenny and pink cusk-eel. Argentine hake, however, had a much broader isotopic niche during the Middle Holocene, when a large part of the population foraged much shallower than contemporary pink cusk-eel. The overall evidence suggests the presence of large numbers of Argentine hake onshore Tierra del Fuego during the Middle Holocene, which allowed exploitation by hunter-gatherer-fisher groups devoid of fishing technology. Interestingly, average SST off Tierra del Fuego during the Middle Holocene was higher than currently (11 °C vs 7 °C) and matched SST in the current southernmost onshore spawning aggregations, at latitude 47 °S. This indicates that increasing SST resulting from global warming will likely result into an increased abundance of adult Argentine hake onshore Tierra del Fuego, as during the Middle Holocene. Furthermore, stable isotope ratios from mollusc shells confirmed a much higher marine primary productivity during the Middle Holocene off Tierra del Fuego.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Bas
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina. .,Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Mónica Salemme
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina.,ICSE, Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia, Argentina
| | | | - Fernando Santiago
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina
| | - Camilla Speller
- Department of Archaeology, BioArCh, University of York, York, UK.,Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Myrian Álvarez
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina
| | - Ivan Briz I Godino
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina.,Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK.,P. Rockefeller Visiting Scholar, DRCLAS at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Luis Cardona
- Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
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Bas M, Briz I Godino I, Álvarez M, Vales DG, Crespo EA, Cardona L. Back to the future? Late Holocene marine food web structure in a warm climatic phase as a predictor of trophodynamics in a warmer South-Western Atlantic Ocean. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2019; 25:404-419. [PMID: 30430698 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14523] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2018] [Revised: 10/30/2018] [Accepted: 11/04/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in the skeletal elements of both ancient and modern marine species from the Beagle Channel were used to compare the structure of Late Holocene and modern food webs, and predict potential changes as a result of a Sea Surface Temperature (SST) increase in the region. Complementary, ancient and modern shells of limpets and mussels were isotopically analysed to explore changes in the isotopic baseline and compare marine food webs through time after an appropriate correction for baseline shifts. Results confirmed a declining pattern of marine primary productivity during the Late Holocene in the Beagle Channel. In general, the isotopic niches overlapped largely in the ancient food web in comparison to the current marine one, with the exception of that of cormorants (Phalacrocorax sp.). Our data suggest that all the species that have undergone intense human exploitation (Arctocephalus australis, Otaria flavescens and Merluccius sp.) significantly increased their trophic levels. The most important finding of this work was the very high isotopic overlap between snoek (Thyrsites atun) and hake (Merluccius sp.) during the Late Holocene. Increasing SST as a result of global warming could favour the recolonization of the southern South-Western Atlantic Ocean by snoek from the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean, with a potential impact on the landings of the economically important Argentine and Austral hake. These findings highlight the relevance of using zooarchaeological remains for providing predictions about marine food webs changes in the near future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Bas
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina
- Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Ivan Briz I Godino
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina
- Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK
| | - Myrian Álvarez
- Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina
| | - Damián G Vales
- Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos (CESIMAR - CCT CONICET - CENPAT), Puerto Madryn, Argentina
| | - Enrique A Crespo
- Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos (CESIMAR - CCT CONICET - CENPAT), Puerto Madryn, Argentina
| | - Luis Cardona
- Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Science, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
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