It takes guts to locate elusive crustacean prey

Lasley-Rasher, Rachel; Brady, Damian C.; Smith, Brian E.; Jumars, Peter A.

doi:10.3354/meps11481

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…The initial results of this and other studies, using molecular or traditional techniques (Boucek & Rehage, 2014;Lasley-Rasher et al, 2015;Schnell et al, 2012), show that diet-based fish diversity techniques are very promising. Certainly, their application remains dependent on the availability of a suitable, ubiquitous and accessible, "sampling species," which requires expanded knowledge of ecological interactions, such as predator-prey dynamics, secondary predation, and the ecology and physiology of both the predator and prey species to assess predator/prey-related biases (Calvignac-Spencer, Leendertz, Gilbert, & Schubert, 2013;Schnell et al, 2015;Siegenthaler et al, 2018).…”

Section: Applications In Fisheries and Environmental Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The application of leeches and carrion flies as biodiversity sampling tools has been proposed for the rapid assessment of mammals in several terrestrial habitats (Calvignac-Spencer, Merkel, et al, 2013;Schnell et al, 2015Schnell et al, , 2012. Although the concept of examining species distribution based on their detection as prey items in the stomach contents of predators has been applied using traditional morphological methods (e.g., Boucek & Rehage, 2014;Fahrig, Lilly, & Miller, 1993;Lasley-Rasher, Brady, Smith, & Jumars, 2015;Stevens, Blewett, Champeau, & Stafford, 2010), trophic DNA-based methods for biodiversity assessment have not yet been employed in marine systems (though suggested by Boyer, Cruickshank, & Wratten, 2015;Deiner et al, 2017), and much still needs to be done in order to identify the most appropriate sample types and markers to detect specific biodiversity components, such as, for instance, teleost species (Shaw et al, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Metabarcoding of shrimp stomach content: Harnessing a natural sampler for fish biodiversity monitoring

Siegenthaler

Wangensteen

Soto

et al. 2018

Molecular Ecology Resources

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Given their positioning and biological productivity, estuaries have long represented key providers of ecosystem services and consequently remain under remarkable pressure from numerous forms of anthropogenic impact. The monitoring of fish communities in space and time is one of the most widespread and established approaches to assess the ecological status of estuaries and other coastal habitats, but traditional fish surveys are invasive, costly, labour intensive and highly selective.Recently, the application of metabarcoding techniques, on either sediment or aqueous environmental DNA, has rapidly gained popularity. Here, we evaluate the application of a novel, high-throughput DNA-based monitoring tool to assess fish diversity, based on the analysis of the gut contents of a generalist predator/scavenger, the European brown shrimp, Crangon crangon. Sediment and shrimp samples were collected from eight European estuaries, and DNA metabarcoding (using both 12S and COI markers) was carried out to infer fish assemblage composition. We detected 32 teleost species (16 and 20, for 12S and COI, respectively). Twice as many species were recovered using metabarcoding than by traditional net surveys.By comparing and interweaving trophic, environmental DNA and traditional surveybased techniques, we show that the DNA-assisted gut content analysis of a ubiquitous, easily accessible, generalist species may serve as a powerful, rapid and cost-effective tool for large-scale, routine estuarine biodiversity monitoring.

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Section: Applications In Fisheries and Environmental Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 88%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metabarcoding of shrimp stomach content: Harnessing a natural sampler for fish biodiversity monitoring

Siegenthaler

Wangensteen

Soto

et al. 2018

Molecular Ecology Resources

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“…Trophic interactions provide important insights on a wide range of ecological dynamics, ranging from individual to ecosystem levels, which include animal behaviour, predator–prey interactions, food web structure and community ecology (e.g., Leray, Meyer, & Mills, ; Pinol, San Andres, Clare, Mir, & Symondson, ). The feeding strategy of key consumers can have pronounced influences on ecosystem dynamics (Hanski, Hansson, & Henttonen, ; Holling, ) and their stomach contents can reveal essential information on food item distribution and prey assemblage structure (Lasley‐Rasher, Brady, Smith, & Jumars, ). Crustaceans are a key component in marine/estuarine soft‐bottom habitats (Evans, , ), and evaluating their diet is very challenging due to the complexity of direct observations on predation rates and the limitations associated with the identification of partially digested food items (Asahida, Yamashita, & Kobayashi, ; Feller, ; Symondson, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA metabarcoding unveils multiscale trophic variation in a widespread coastal opportunist

et al. 2018

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A thorough understanding of ecological networks relies on comprehensive information on trophic relationships among species. Since unpicking the diet of many organisms is unattainable using traditional morphology‐based approaches, the application of high‐throughput sequencing methods represents a rapid and powerful way forward. Here, we assessed the application of DNA metabarcoding with nearly universal primers for the mitochondrial marker cytochrome c oxidase I in defining the trophic ecology of adult brown shrimp, Crangon crangon, in six European estuaries. The exact trophic role of this abundant and widespread coastal benthic species is somewhat controversial, while information on geographical variation remains scant. Results revealed a highly opportunistic behaviour. Shrimp stomach contents contained hundreds of taxa (>1,000 molecular operational taxonomic units), of which 291 were identified as distinct species, belonging to 35 phyla. Only twenty ascertained species had a mean relative abundance of more than 0.5%. Predominant species included other abundant coastal and estuarine taxa, including the shore crab Carcinus maenas and the amphipod Corophium volutator. Jacobs’ selectivity index estimates based on DNA extracted from both shrimp stomachs and sediment samples were used to assess the shrimp's trophic niche indicating a generalist diet, dominated by crustaceans, polychaetes and fish. Spatial variation in diet composition, at regional and local scales, confirmed the highly flexible nature of this trophic opportunist. Furthermore, the detection of a prevalent, possibly endoparasitic fungus (Purpureocillium lilacinum) in the shrimp's stomach demonstrates the wide range of questions that can be addressed using metabarcoding, towards a more robust reconstruction of ecological networks.

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“…While the depth associations of individual species for this region likely relate to a variety of factors (Overholtz and Tyler , Gabriel , Watling and Skinder ), e.g., species physiologies, life history traits (Methratta and Link ), and summertime prey distributions (Lasley‐Rasher et al. ), the observed assemblage‐level decline reflects a widely occurring phenomenon (Langton et al. , Saiz‐Salinas et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3A, D). While the depth associations of individual species for this region likely relate to a variety of factors (Overholtz and Tyler 1985, Gabriel 1992, Watling and Skinder 2007, e.g., species physiologies, life history traits (Methratta and Link 2007a), and summertime prey distributions (Lasley-Rasher et al 2015), the observed assemblage-level decline reflects a widely occurring phenomenon (Langton et al 1995, Saiz-Salinas et al 1998, Colloca et al 2003, Thresher et al 2014). In the shallows, benthic marine macrophytes such as kelp and seaweeds support traditional food webs by providing complex habitat structure and ample organic matter (i.e., POC and DOC) for herbivorous megafauna and their predators (Steneck et al 2002).…”

Section: Importance Of Abiotic Proxiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abiotic proxies for predictive mapping of nearshore benthic assemblages: implications for marine spatial planning

McHenry

Steneck

Brady

2017

Ecological Applications

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Marine spatial planning (MSP) should assist managers in guiding human activities toward sustainable practices and in minimizing user conflicts in our oceans. A necessary first step is to quantify spatial patterns of marine assemblages in order to understand the ecosystem's structure, function, and services. However, the large spatial scale, high economic value, and density of human activities in nearshore habitats often makes quantifying this component of marine ecosystems especially daunting. To address this challenge, we developed an assessment method that employs abiotic proxies to rapidly characterize marine assemblages in nearshore benthic environments with relatively high resolution. We evaluated this assessment method along 300 km of the State of Maine's coastal shelf (<100 m depth), a zone where high densities of buoyed lobster traps typically preclude extensive surveys by towed sampling gear (i.e., otter trawls). During the summer months of 2010-2013, we implemented a stratified-random survey using a small remotely operated vehicle that allowed us to work around lobster buoys and to quantify all benthic megafauna to species. Stratifying by substrate, depth, and coastal water masses, we found that abiotic variables explained a significant portion of variance (37-59%) in benthic species composition, diversity, biomass, and economic value. Generally, the density, diversity, and biomass of assemblages significantly increased with the substrate complexity (i.e., from sand-mud to ledge). The diversity, biomass, and economic value of assemblages also decreased significantly with increasing depth. Last, demersal fish densities, sessile invertebrate densities, species diversity, and assemblage biomass increased from east to west, while the abundance of mobile invertebrates and economic value decreased, corresponding mainly to the contrasting water mass characteristics of the Maine Coastal Current system (i.e., summertime current direction, speed, and temperature). Integrating modeled predictions with existing GIS layers for abiotic conditions allowed us to scale up important assemblage attributes to define key foundational ecological principles of MSP and to find priority regions where some bottom-disturbing activities would have minimal impact to benthic assemblages. We conclude that abiotic proxies can be strong forcing functions for the assembly of marine communities and therefore useful tools for spatial extrapolations of marine assemblages in congested (heavily used) nearshore habitats.

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It takes guts to locate elusive crustacean prey

Cited by 15 publications

References 55 publications

Metabarcoding of shrimp stomach content: Harnessing a natural sampler for fish biodiversity monitoring

Metabarcoding of shrimp stomach content: Harnessing a natural sampler for fish biodiversity monitoring

DNA metabarcoding unveils multiscale trophic variation in a widespread coastal opportunist

Abiotic proxies for predictive mapping of nearshore benthic assemblages: implications for marine spatial planning

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