Carbon sources and trophic connectivity in seafloor food webs in the Alaska Arctic and sub-Arctic

• Main Author: Oxtoby, Laura Elizabeth
• Other Authors: Wooller, Matthew, O'Brien, Diane, Iken, Katrin, Horstmann, Larissa, Budge, Suzanne
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Arctic; Bering Sea; Fairbanks; Chukchi; Alaska
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/6635

Dissertation (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016 Stable isotope analysis offers critical insight into organic matter pathways that sustain and link consumers in a food web. Indirect examination of organic matter sources and consumer diets using stable isotope analysis is especially valuable in the Alaska Arctic and sub-Arctic marine realm, where organisms of interest are difficult to observe given their remote habitat and elusive behavior. The research objective of this body of work was to use novel applications of stable isotope analysis to extend our understanding of organic matter sources, trophic pathways, and resource competition among benthic consumers. Microphytobenthos, a community of photosynthesizing unicellular microscopic algal cells on the seafloor sediment, has not been included in stable isotope food web models in the Alaska Arctic and sub-Arctic due to challenges associated with sample collection and analysis. I constrained the isotopic composition of this potential algal source by integrating field measurements, physiological relationships previously established by laboratory studies, and a range of algal growth rates specific to high latitude primary production. Relative to other sources of primary production in the Arctic, sub-Arctic, and lower latitude ecosystems, estimates for stable carbon isotope values of total organic carbon from microphytobenthos in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas were higher than those for Arctic riverine organic matter, but lower than ice algal sources and microphytobenthos measurements from lower latitudes. To further elucidate trophic pathways and resource partitioning among benthic invertebrate consumers, I combined compound-specific stable isotope analysis, a relatively new analytical tool, with fatty acid analysis to estimate proportional contributions of algal sources from ice, open ocean, and surface sediments to common polychaete and bivalve consumers in the Bering Sea. Benthic invertebrates were collected in 2009-2010 and represented a diverse range ...