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On the potential of fatty acids as trophic markers in Arctic grazers: feeding experiments with sea urchins and amphipods fed nine diets of macroalgae

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Abstract

To elucidate dietary preferences of benthic grazers at the Arctic Kongsfjorden by means of fatty acid trophic markers, ten different parallel treatments (starvation, 3 species of red macroalgae, 4 species of brown macroalgae and 2 species of green macroalgae) were offered as mono-algal diet to specimens of the dominant sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis (Echinodermata, Echinoidea) and the gammarid amphipod Gammarellus homari (Crustacea, Amphipoda). At the end of the 3-week feeding experiments, amphipods and sea urchins (soft tissue) were deep-frozen and analysed for total lipid contents as well as fatty acid (FA) compositions. In addition, FA profiles of the algal species were determined and screened for specific FA patterns or single FAs qualifying as potential trophic markers in the grazers. Despite their diets of nine algal species with different FA compositions, FA patterns of the sea urchins and amphipods revealed a pronounced similarity between treatments. This strong similarity was also observed in the faecal pellets of the sea urchins. Hence, deviating FA compositions of the macroalgae were neither reflected in the FA patterns of the grazers’ tissue nor in their faecal pellets. Suitable algal FA trophic markers could thus not be identified in the two grazers from Kongsfjorden. The rather low lipid levels, especially in the amphipods, as well as a pronounced degradation and modification of FAs may explain that the FA trophic marker approach did not provide evidence of dietary preferences. Future experiments may obtain a higher resolution of potential FA trophic markers by analysing separate lipid classes or single tissues of lipid-poor grazers. Alternatively, different methods are needed to reveal high-resolution trophic relationships between macroalgae and herbivores in Kongsfjorden.

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Acknowledgments

This work was performed at the Ny Ålesund International Research and Monitoring Facility on Spitsbergen (Svalbard). The authors are also grateful to the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Center for Scientific Diving, especially to Max Schwanitz, Dr. Jürgen Laudien, Dr. Tilman Alpermann, Claudia Daniel, Saskia Brandt, Dr. Ricardo Sahade and Dr. Marcos Tatian for providing samples by SCUBA-diving, as well as to the staff at Koldewey Station. The experiments comply with the current laws of Germany and Norway. In addition, all authors thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for funding this project. The authors thank Dr. Katharina Fabricius, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, and 2 anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Zoology, University of Bremen, P.O. Box 330440, 28334, Bremen, Germany

    Hendrik Wessels & Wilhelm Hagen

  2. Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Strasse 3, 18051, Rostock, Germany

    Ulf Karsten

  3. Department of Seaweed Biology, Section Functional Ecology, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Am Handelshafen 12, 27570, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Christian Wiencke

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  1. Hendrik Wessels
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  4. Wilhelm Hagen
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Correspondence to Wilhelm Hagen.

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Wessels, H., Karsten, U., Wiencke, C. et al. On the potential of fatty acids as trophic markers in Arctic grazers: feeding experiments with sea urchins and amphipods fed nine diets of macroalgae. Polar Biol 35, 555–565 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-011-1101-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-011-1101-3

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