Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web
Ecosystems can be linked by the movement of matter and nutrients across habitat boundaries via aquatic insect emergence. Aquatic organisms tend to have higher concentrations of certain toxic contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg) compared to their terrestrial counterparts. If aquatic organisms co...
Published in: | Ecological Applications |
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Language: | English |
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ftuabarcelonapb:oai:ddd.uab.cat:141527 2023-05-15T16:51:23+02:00 Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web Bartrons Vilamala, Mireia Gratton, Claudio Spiesman, Brian J. Vander Zanden, M. Jake 2015 application/pdf https://ddd.uab.cat/record/141527 eng eng Ecological Applications Vol. 25, issue 1 (Jan. 2015), p. 151-159 https://ddd.uab.cat/record/141527 urn:10.1890/14-0038.1 urn:oai:ddd.uab.cat:141527 urn:scopus_id:84922061197 urn:wos_id:000348667900013 urn:altmetric_id:3107023 open access Tots els drets reservats. https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Methylmercury Food web Aquatic-terrestrial linkages Stable isotopes Spider Ecological tracer Article 2015 ftuabarcelonapb 2023-02-06T21:04:46Z Ecosystems can be linked by the movement of matter and nutrients across habitat boundaries via aquatic insect emergence. Aquatic organisms tend to have higher concentrations of certain toxic contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg) compared to their terrestrial counterparts. If aquatic organisms come to land, terrestrial organisms that consume them are expected to have elevated MeHg concentrations. But emergent aquatic insects could have other impacts as well, such as altering consumer trophic position or increasing ecosystem productivity as a result of nutrient inputs from insect carcasses. We measure MeHg in terrestrial arthropods at two lakes in northeastern Iceland and use carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to quantify aquatic reliance and trophic position. Across all terrestrial focal arthropod taxa (Lycosidae, Linyphiidae, Acari, Opiliones), aquatic reliance had significant direct and indirect (via changes in trophic position) effects on terrestrial consumer MeHg. However, contrary to our expectations, terrestrial consumers that consumed aquatic prey had lower MeHg concentrations than consumers that ate mostly terrestrial prey. We hypothesize that this is due to the lower trophic position of consumers feeding directly on midges relative to those that fed mostly on terrestrial prey and that had, on average, higher trophic positions. Thus, direct consumption of aquatic inputs results in a trophic bypass that creates a shorter terrestrial food web and reduced biomagnification of MeHg across the food web. Our finding that MeHg was lower at terrestrial sites with aquatic inputs runs counter to the conventional wisdom that aquatic systems are a source of MeHg contamination to surrounding terrestrial ecosystems. Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB Ecological Applications 25 1 151 159 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
op_collection_id |
ftuabarcelonapb |
language |
English |
topic |
Methylmercury Food web Aquatic-terrestrial linkages Stable isotopes Spider Ecological tracer |
spellingShingle |
Methylmercury Food web Aquatic-terrestrial linkages Stable isotopes Spider Ecological tracer Bartrons Vilamala, Mireia Gratton, Claudio Spiesman, Brian J. Vander Zanden, M. Jake Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
topic_facet |
Methylmercury Food web Aquatic-terrestrial linkages Stable isotopes Spider Ecological tracer |
description |
Ecosystems can be linked by the movement of matter and nutrients across habitat boundaries via aquatic insect emergence. Aquatic organisms tend to have higher concentrations of certain toxic contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg) compared to their terrestrial counterparts. If aquatic organisms come to land, terrestrial organisms that consume them are expected to have elevated MeHg concentrations. But emergent aquatic insects could have other impacts as well, such as altering consumer trophic position or increasing ecosystem productivity as a result of nutrient inputs from insect carcasses. We measure MeHg in terrestrial arthropods at two lakes in northeastern Iceland and use carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to quantify aquatic reliance and trophic position. Across all terrestrial focal arthropod taxa (Lycosidae, Linyphiidae, Acari, Opiliones), aquatic reliance had significant direct and indirect (via changes in trophic position) effects on terrestrial consumer MeHg. However, contrary to our expectations, terrestrial consumers that consumed aquatic prey had lower MeHg concentrations than consumers that ate mostly terrestrial prey. We hypothesize that this is due to the lower trophic position of consumers feeding directly on midges relative to those that fed mostly on terrestrial prey and that had, on average, higher trophic positions. Thus, direct consumption of aquatic inputs results in a trophic bypass that creates a shorter terrestrial food web and reduced biomagnification of MeHg across the food web. Our finding that MeHg was lower at terrestrial sites with aquatic inputs runs counter to the conventional wisdom that aquatic systems are a source of MeHg contamination to surrounding terrestrial ecosystems. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bartrons Vilamala, Mireia Gratton, Claudio Spiesman, Brian J. Vander Zanden, M. Jake |
author_facet |
Bartrons Vilamala, Mireia Gratton, Claudio Spiesman, Brian J. Vander Zanden, M. Jake |
author_sort |
Bartrons Vilamala, Mireia |
title |
Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
title_short |
Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
title_full |
Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
title_fullStr |
Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
title_full_unstemmed |
Taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
title_sort |
taking the trophic bypass : aquatic-terrestrial linkage reduces methylmercury in a terrestrial food web |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://ddd.uab.cat/record/141527 |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_relation |
Ecological Applications Vol. 25, issue 1 (Jan. 2015), p. 151-159 https://ddd.uab.cat/record/141527 urn:10.1890/14-0038.1 urn:oai:ddd.uab.cat:141527 urn:scopus_id:84922061197 urn:wos_id:000348667900013 urn:altmetric_id:3107023 |
op_rights |
open access Tots els drets reservats. https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
container_title |
Ecological Applications |
container_volume |
25 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
151 |
op_container_end_page |
159 |
_version_ |
1766041507295395840 |