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Carbon from littoral producers is the major source of energy for bottom-feeding fish in a tropical floodplain

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Abstract

Bottom-feeding fish show great variation in trophic morphology, resulting in a wide array of feeding habits exploiting from periphyton in littoral habitats to ingesting larger amounts of litterfall from terrestrial habitats. Nevertheless, it has been proposed that, in temperate aquatic systems, the energetic demands from bottom-feeding fish are supplied by primary production from phytoplankton in pelagic habitats. Thus, we aimed to determine which of several energy sources support bottom-feeding fish in tropical aquatic systems, where primary producers are diverse. We performed samplings in the Paraná River floodplain from primary producers in littoral (periphyton), pelagic (phytoplankton) and terrestrial habitats (riparian vegetation). Using simultaneous signatures of C and N isotope ratios, we analysed the possible origin of available energy in muscles of nine different bottom-feeding fish species. We verified that seven of the nine fish species had the highest contribution of carbon from a littoral source compared to other energy sources, independent of trophic category. The importance of periphyton may be related to the high abundance of substrates (such as macrophytes) that are available in the littoral zone of tropical aquatic systems. Finally, we suggest that the actual carbon dynamics among bottom-feeding fish and primary producers is species-specific, varying within the same trophic guild, and therefore, it is possible to refute the assumption that each trophic guild is specialised for a distinct carbon source.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Brazilian National Agency for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for its financial support. We also thank PELD (UEM-NUPELIA) field teams for their help in collecting the biological material and the laboratories of Zoology (DBI), Zooplankton, Phytoplankton, Periphyton, Riparian Vegetation, Limnology, and Zoobenthos (NUPELIA) for their logistical support. All authors are grateful to Maria S. R. Arita and João F. Hildebrant for help with bibliographical material. Finally, we thank Roger P. Mormul for critically reading this manuscript. The present research was conducted in agreement with the “Ethical Principles in Animal Research” adopted by the Brazilian College of Animal Experimentation (COBEA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fundação Dracenense de Educação e Cultura, Avenida Alcides Chacon Couto 395, Dracena, SP, CEP 17900-000, Brazil

    Célia A. Lopes

  2. Núcleo de Pesquisa em Limnologia, Ictiologia e Aquicultura (Nupélia), Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM), Avenida Colombo, 5790, Bloco H-90, Maringá, PR, CEP 87020-900, Brazil

    Gislaine I. Manetta, Bruno R. S. Figueiredo & Evanilde Benedito

  3. Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA), Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Avenida Centenário, 303, Piracicaba, SP, CEP 13416-000, Brazil

    Luiz A. Martinelli

Authors
  1. Célia A. Lopes
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  2. Gislaine I. Manetta
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  3. Bruno R. S. Figueiredo
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  4. Luiz A. Martinelli
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  5. Evanilde Benedito
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Correspondence to Bruno R. S. Figueiredo.

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Lopes, C.A., Manetta, G.I., Figueiredo, B.R.S. et al. Carbon from littoral producers is the major source of energy for bottom-feeding fish in a tropical floodplain. Environ Biol Fish 98, 1081–1088 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0343-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0343-7

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