Variable nutrient stoichiometry (carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus) across trophic levels determines community and ecosystem properties in an oligotrophic mangrove system

Oecologia - Tập 179 - Trang 863-876 - 2015
U. M. Scharler1, R. E. Ulanowicz2,3, M. L. Fogel4,5, M. J. Wooller6,7, M. E. Jacobson-Meyers8, C. E. Lovelock9, I. C. Feller10, M. Frischer11, R. Lee12, K. McKee13, I. C. Romero14, J. P. Schmit15, C. Shearer16
1School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
2Arthur R. Marshall Laboratory, Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
3Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Solomons, USA
4Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, USA
5School of Natural Science, University of California at Merced, Merced, USA
6School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, USA
7Alaska Stable Isotope Facility, Water and Environmental Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, USA
8University of Southern California Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles, USA
9School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia
10Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, USA
11Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Savannah, USA
12Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
13US Geological Survey, National Wetlands Research Center, Lafayette, USA
14College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, USA
15National Capital Region Inventory and Monitoring Network, National Park Service, Washington, USA
16Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, USA

Tóm tắt

Our study investigated the carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus (C:N:P) stoichiometry of mangrove island of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (Twin Cays, Belize). The C:N:P of abiotic and biotic components of this oligotrophic ecosystem was measured and served to build networks of nutrient flows for three distinct mangrove forest zones (tall seaward fringing forest, inland dwarf forests and a transitional zone). Between forest zones, the stoichiometry of primary producers, heterotrophs and abiotic components did not change significantly, but there was a significant difference in C:N:P, and C, N, and P biomass, between the functional groups mangrove trees, other primary producers, heterotrophs, and abiotic components. C:N:P decreased with increasing trophic level. Nutrient recycling in the food webs was highest for P, and high transfer efficiencies between trophic levels of P and N also indicated an overall shortage of these nutrients when compared to C. Heterotrophs were sometimes, but not always, limited by the same nutrient as the primary producers. Mangrove trees and the primary tree consumers were P limited, whereas the invertebrates consuming leaf litter and detritus were N limited. Most compartments were limited by P or N (not by C), and the relative depletion rate of food sources was fastest for P. P transfers thus constituted a bottleneck of nutrient transfer on Twin Cays. This is the first comprehensive ecosystem study of nutrient transfers in a mangrove ecosystem, illustrating some mechanisms (e.g. recycling rates, transfer efficiencies) which oligotrophic systems use in order to build up biomass and food webs spanning various trophic levels.

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Oecologia

Tập 179

863-876

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