Abstract
Marine wood-boring invertebrates rapidly fragment coarse woody debris in the sea. These wood borers have the ability to digest wood cellulose, but other potential food sources have been less investigated. To assess the contribution of each potential food source to the diet of wood borers, we traced seasonal and environmental changes in δ13C of shipworms cultured under the same experimental conditions and related these changes to variations in δ13C of potential food sources, i.e., wood log and particulate organic matter (POM) by using multiple linear regression models rather than the Bayesian mixing model. Based on the standardized partial regression coefficients in the model, it became clear that wood-derived organic carbon was the main carbon source for the teredinids, and POM also accounted for 37.9% of the teredinids’ carbon source. Furthermore, we clarified variations in supplemental nitrogen sources for the teredinids: one species depended on both POM and wood log, whereas the other three species depended on either POM or wood log for their nitrogen source. δ13C values of another wood-boring bivalve of Martesia (Pholadidae) increase as it grows, which suggests that the bivalve switches its feeding strategy from xylophagous to filter feeding as it grows. Wood borers are known to accelerate the transfer of organic materials derived from wood logs to marine ecosystems. However, this study suggests that autochthonous production strongly contribute to the diet of marine wood borers, helping them to decompose wood logs in temperate shallow water.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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R packages are listed in “Materials and methods”.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Keita Harada (Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, Kyoto University), Go Suzuki (Seikai National Fisheries Research Institute, Fisheries Research Agency, Japan) and Hiroshi Fukuda (Faculty of Agriculture, Okayama University) for their assistance with the field sampling, Michitaka Shimomura (Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, Kyoto University) for his identification of limnoriid isopods, Keiko Yamada (National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, Fisheries Research Agency, Japan) for her help in running the elemental analyzer and mass spectrometry. The authors wish to thank three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier version of the manuscript.
Funding
This study was partially funded by a Grant-in-Aid for Japan Society for the Promotion of Science fellows to AN (222580) and to TH (237855). Stable isotope analysis was supported by National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, Fisheries Research Agency, Japan.
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AN drafted a research plan, designed the methodology and collected the samples; TH identified the bivalves and produced Suppl. Fig. 2; AN produced other figures and tables; AN analyzed the stable isotope ratios; TH, AA and YS guided the work; AN drafted the manuscript and TH and AA contributed critically to the manuscript writing; all the authors gave final approval for submission.
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Nishimoto, A., Haga, T., Asakura, A. et al. Autochthonous production contributes to the diet of wood-boring invertebrates in temperate shallow water. Oecologia 196, 877–889 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04973-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04973-0