Project: Planktonic Omnivores and Stable Isotopes: Developing, Validating and Field-testing a Multi-species Functional Response Model

NSF Award Abstract:

Diagrams of food webs are typically drawn as boxes that show linkages between predators and prey. While these are useful models of how energy is transferred along a food chain, real food webs are more complex. Predator diets are often variable making it difficult to establish predator-prey links in marine communities. This project is investigating prey switching in a key member of coastal food webs, the shrimp-like mysid, Neomysis americana. Prey switching affects community structure and an organism’s resilience to environmental perturbation, but it is not easy to quantify. This project is using a combination of laboratory experiments and field sampling to develop a food web model that predicts mysid feeding patterns in the environment. This realistic and predictive food web model uses traditional gut analysis and analytical techniques that follow carbon and nitrogen as it is incorporated into the bodies of the mysids. In addition, mysid food preferences are being determined in the laboratory across a full range of diet possibilities. The calibrated gut analysis and chemical marker data in combination with feeding experiments are incorporated into the model, which then predicts mysid feeding on mixed diets under different environmental conditions. These predictions are validated against field data. Broader impacts include benefits to society for a better understanding of how coastal food webs work. Doctoral students and undergraduate students are being trained in experimental and field research. Increasing diversity in STEM fields is occurring through a partnership with two community colleges (College of Southern Maryland, Chesapeake College) to recruit summer interns for research experiences. Outreach activities include the development of educational materials for grade-appropriate hands-on laboratory experiments and training opportunities for middle and high school teacher groups in the use of these materials in their classrooms.

This project is developing and field-testing a generalizable approach to understand and predict complex predator-prey relationships in marine food webs. The research plan involves building and validating a multispecies functional response (MSFR) model for an omnivorous consumer, the mysid Neomysis americana. These models predict diet for consumers that feed on multiple types of prey under differing prey concentrations and identify conditions under which prey switching occurs in the environment. Recent and time-integrated diet tracking with gut contents, bulk stable isotope (SI) and compound-specific amino acid stable isotope (AA-CSI) analysis are validated in the lab and used to reconstruct diet of Neomysis in the field. The proposed research is testing specific hypotheses about Neomysis’ consumption rates and prey preferences and the effectiveness of integrating SI and AA-CSI into MSFR models. Laboratory experiments are determining prey-specific functional response curves by Neomysis under varying prey concentrations and environmental (temperature) conditions using grazing experiments. Experimental results are incorporated into a temperature-dependent MSFR model for a 5-compartment simplified food web (Neomysis, adult copepod, copepod nauplii, phytoplankton, detritus). A complementary element of the project is the experimental determination of bulk SI (𝛿13C and 𝛿15N) and AA-CSI (𝛿15N) equilibration rates and trophic enrichment factors for Neomysis and each prey type. The predator-prey dynamics of Neomysis in the environment are being modeled using the lab-validated MSFR approach and field data, including prey concentrations, gut contents, and prey and Neomysis SI and AA-CSI data.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.