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Growth and stoichiometry of a common aquatic detritivore respond to changes in resource stoichiometry

  • Ecosystem ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Consumer growth determines the quantity of nutrients transferred through food webs. The extent to which leaf composition and consumer physiology interact to constrain consumer production is not well understood. For example, detritivore growth, and thus material transfer, could change with detrital elemental composition. Detrital type and associated microbial biofilms can mediate the amount and rate of detritus consumed and used towards growth. Detritivore body stoichiometry or the threshold elemental ratio, the food ratio resulting in optimal growth, may predict taxon-specific growth response to stoichiometrically-altered detritus. Empirical measures of detritivore growth responses across a range of detrital stoichiometry are rare. We fed a common detritivore, Tipula abdominalis, maple or oak leaves that spanned a gradient of carbon:phosphorus (C:P) to examine how leaf identity and C:P interact to influence growth, consumption, assimilation efficiencies, and post-assimilatory processes. Tipula abdominalis growth and consumption varied with leaf type and stoichiometry. Individuals fed oak grew faster and ate more compared to individuals fed maple. Individuals fed maple grew faster and ate more as leaf C:P decreased. All individuals lost most of the material they assimilated through respiration and excretion regardless of leaf type or leaf stoichiometry. Consumption and growth rates of T. abdominalis increased with maple nutrient enrichment, but not oak, indicating leaf-specific nutrient enrichment affected leaf palatability. Slightly non-homeostatic T. abdominalis C:P was maintained by varied consumption, carbon assimilation, and P excretion. Our study underlines the importance of how detritivore consumption and post-assimilatory processing could influence whole-stream material storage and nutrient cycling in detrital-based ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

The National Science Foundation (DEB 1020076) funded this research. The authors thank Halvor Halvorson, Jasmine Gilbert, Erin Grantz, and J. Thad Scott for laboratory assistance and use. Bob Hall and two anonymous reviewers provided value comments that improved the quality of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biology Department, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA

    Chris L. Fuller & Sally A. Entrekin

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Michelle A. Evans-White

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  1. Chris L. Fuller
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  2. Michelle A. Evans-White
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Correspondence to Sally A. Entrekin.

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Communicated by Joel Trexler.

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Fuller, C.L., Evans-White, M.A. & Entrekin, S.A. Growth and stoichiometry of a common aquatic detritivore respond to changes in resource stoichiometry. Oecologia 177, 837–848 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3154-9

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