Isotopic incorporation rates and discrimination factors in mantis shrimp crustaceans

PLoS One. 2015 Apr 2;10(4):e0122334. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0122334. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Stable isotope analysis has provided insights into the trophic ecology of a wide diversity of animals. Knowledge about isotopic incorporation rates and isotopic discrimination between the consumer and its diet for different tissue types is essential for interpreting stable isotope data, but these parameters remain understudied in many animal taxa and particularly in aquatic invertebrates. We performed a 292-day diet shift experiment on 92 individuals of the predatory mantis shrimp, Neogonodactylus bredini, to quantify carbon and nitrogen incorporation rates and isotope discrimination factors in muscle and hemolymph tissues. Average isotopic discrimination factors between mantis shrimp muscle and the new diet were 3.0 ± 0.6 ‰ and 0.9 ± 0.3 ‰ for carbon and nitrogen, respectively, which is contrary to what is seen in many other animals (e.g. C and N discrimination is generally 0-1 ‰ and 3-4 ‰, respectively). Surprisingly, the average residence time of nitrogen in hemolymph (28.9 ± 8.3 days) was over 8 times longer than that of carbon (3.4 ± 1.4 days). In muscle, the average residence times of carbon and nitrogen were of the same magnitude (89.3 ± 44.4 and 72.8 ± 18.8 days, respectively). We compared the mantis shrimps' incorporation rates, along with rates from four other invertebrate taxa from the literature, to those predicted by an allometric equation relating carbon incorporation rate to body mass that was developed for teleost fishes and sharks. The rate of carbon incorporation into muscle was consistent with rates predicted by this equation. Our findings provide new insight into isotopic discrimination factors and incorporation rates in invertebrates with the former showing a different trend than what is commonly observed in other animals.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Carbon Isotopes / metabolism
  • Crustacea / growth & development
  • Crustacea / metabolism*
  • Fishes / metabolism
  • Food Chain
  • Hemolymph / chemistry
  • Hemolymph / metabolism*
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Muscles / chemistry
  • Muscles / metabolism*
  • Nitrogen Isotopes / metabolism
  • Predatory Behavior / physiology

Substances

  • Carbon Isotopes
  • Nitrogen Isotopes

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the American Museum of Natural History Lerner-Gray Fund (http://www.amnh.org/our-research/richard-gilder-graduate-school/academics-and-research/fellowship-and-grant-opportunities/research-grants-and-student-exchange-fellowships), the Berkeley and National Sigma Xi Scientific Honors Society Grants-In-Aid-of-Research (https://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/grants-in-aid), the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology Grants-In-Aid-of-Research (http://www.sicb.org/grants/researchgrant.php3), the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Short-Term Fellowship Award (http://www.stri.si.edu/english/education_fellowships/fellowships/index.php), the UC Berkeley Department of Integrative Biology Endowment, the UC Museum of Paleontology Graduate Student Research Award (all awards to MSdV). Funding was also provided by the National Science Foundation (IOS-1014573 to S. N. Patek). Publication made possible in part by support from the Berkeley Research Impact Initative (BRII) sponsored by the UC Berkeley Library. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.