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Differences in food web structure of mangroves and freshwater marshes: evidence from stable isotope studies in the Southern Gulf of Mexico

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Abstract

Tropical coastal habitats like marshes, mangroves, and submerged grasses comprise diverse plant and animal communities and a certain degree of connectivity with other ecosystems. We compared the food web structure of a fringing mangrove-seagrass habitat and three fluvio-lagoons with marsh-eelgrass and mangrove-bare sediments during a dry season in Terminos Lagoon and Centla Wetlands, Southern Gulf of Mexico. Analysis of δ13C and δ15N stable isotopes in tissues of aquatic consumers, primary producers, and other carbon sources, in combination with isotope-based Bayesian methods, were performed to determine the main food sources and the isotopic niche of the consumers’ communities. Consumers in the mangrove-seagrass site showed high dependence on phytoplankton (average contribution 31 %), macroalgae (20 %) and organic matter derived from seagrasses (17 %). In the fluvio-lagoons, consumers showed high dependence on marginal vegetation (16–46 %). Phytoplankton and mangrove epiphytes comprised other important resources at these sites (with contributions of 24–44 %). The isotopic niche of consumers from the fringing mangrove-seagrass site did not overlap with those from the fluvio-lagoons. Moreover, despite the predominance of generalist consumers in all sites, differences in their isotopic niche area were observed, with consumers from the marsh-eelgrass site showing the narrowest. This suggests that consumer resource availability greatly differs in these habitats. Our results provide valuable information that help increase our understanding about the trophic structure in these important estuarine systems.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the fishermen Benjamín Martínez “Mincho”, Gustavo Salvador Guzmán and Don Gabriel “Pico” for their guidance, enthusiasm and support during the sampling surveys; to our colleagues Christian Carolina Hernández Lazo, Wendy Arévalo Frías, Juan Juárez Flores and Angela Cigarroa Torres from ECOSUR-Villahermosa for their help in field and laboratory work; to Emerson Almar Maldonado Sánchez for his support to identify plant species; to Dr. Luis José Rangel from the Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco (UJAT) for his support to identify bivalves; to Dr. Alejandro Yáñez-Arancibia, Dr. Jorge A. Herrera-Silveira, and Dr. Miguel Ángel Salcedo for their kindness and accessibility to provide information about the area of study; and to the anonymous reviewers and the Editor in Chief Dr. Takashi Asaeda for their thoughtful commentaries to improve this work. We are also grateful to Maryam Shahraki for an early revision, and to Margaret Jend, Björn Hönke and Marianna Audfroid Calderón for English correction. A. Sepúlveda-Lozada especially thanks the Katholischer Akademischer Ausländer-Dienst (KAAD) for the provision of a PhD scholarship. This research was sponsored by El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR)-CONACYT, México.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT), Fahrenheitstraße 6, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Alejandra Sepúlveda-Lozada, Matthias Wolff & Ulrich Saint-Paul

  2. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, ECOSUR Unidad Villahermosa, Departamento de Ciencias de la Sustentabilidad – Manejo Sustentable de Cuencas y Zonas Costeras, Carr. Reforma km. 15.5 s/n, Ra. Guineo 2a. sección, 86280, Villahermosa, Tabasco, México

    Manuel Mendoza-Carranza

  3. Centro Nacional de Investigación Disciplinaria en Conservación y Mejoramiento de Ecosistemas Forestales, INIFAP, Av. Progreso No. 5, Barrio de Sta. Catarina, Del. Coyoacán, 04010, México D.F., México

    Alejandro Ponce-Mendoza

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  1. Alejandra Sepúlveda-Lozada
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  2. Manuel Mendoza-Carranza
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  3. Matthias Wolff
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  4. Ulrich Saint-Paul
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  5. Alejandro Ponce-Mendoza
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Correspondence to Alejandra Sepúlveda-Lozada.

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Sepúlveda-Lozada, A., Mendoza-Carranza, M., Wolff, M. et al. Differences in food web structure of mangroves and freshwater marshes: evidence from stable isotope studies in the Southern Gulf of Mexico. Wetlands Ecol Manage 23, 293–314 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-014-9382-2

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