Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ferrier‐Pagès, Christine
• Leal, Miguel Costa

Titel

Stable isotopes as tracers of trophic interactions in marine mutualistic symbioses

Ist Teil von

• Ecology and evolution, 2019-01, Vol.9 (1), p.723-740

Ort / Verlag

England: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals Frontfile Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Mutualistic nutritional symbioses are widespread in marine ecosystems. They involve the association of a host organism (algae, protists, or marine invertebrates) with symbiotic microorganisms, such as bacteria, cyanobacteria, or dinoflagellates. Nutritional interactions between the partners are difficult to identify in symbioses because they only occur in intact associations. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) has proven to be a useful tool to highlight original nutrient sources and to trace nutrients acquired by and exchanged between the different partners of the association. However, although SIA has been extensively applied to study different marine symbiotic associations, there is no review taking into account of the different types of symbiotic associations, how they have been studied via SIA, methodological issues common among symbiotic associations, and solutions that can be transferred from one type of association with another. The present review aims to fill such gaps in the scientific literature by summarizing the current knowledge of how isotopes have been applied to key marine symbioses to unravel nutrient exchanges between partners, and by describing the difficulties in interpreting the isotopic signal. This review also focuses on the use of compound‐specific stable isotope analysis and on statistical advances to analyze stable isotope data. It also highlights the knowledge gaps that would benefit from future research. We review the current knowledge of how stable isotopes have been applied to key marine symbioses to unravel nutrient exchanges between partners with a horizontal perspective on the different types of symbiotic associations. We highlight methodological issues common among symbiotic associations, and solutions that can be transferred from one type of association to another.