A large metabolic carbon contribution to the δ 13C record in marine aragonitic bivalve shells

Abstract

It is well known that the incorporation of isotopically light metabolic carbon (C M) significantly affects the stable carbon isotope (δ 13C) signal recorded in biogenic carbonates. This can obscure the record of δ 13C of seawater dissolved inorganic carbon (δ 13C DIC) potentially archived in the shell carbonate. To assess the C M contribution to Mercenaria mercenaria shells collected in North Carolina, USA, we sampled seawater δ 13C DIC, tissue, hemolymph and shell δ 13C. All shells showed an ontogenic decrease in shell δ 13C, with as much as a 4‰ decrease over the lifespan of the clam. There was no apparent ontogenic change in food source indicated by soft tissue δ 13C values, therefore a change in the respired δ 13C value cannot be the cause of this decrease. Hemolymph δ 13C, on the other hand, did exhibit a negative relationship with shell height indicating that respired CO 2 does influence the δ 13C value of internal fluids and that the amount of respired CO 2 is related to the size or age of the bivalve. The percent metabolic C incorporated into the shell (%C M) was significantly higher (up to 37%, with a range from 5% to 37%) than has been found in other bivalve shells, which usually contain less than 10%C M. Interestingly, the hemolymph did contain less than 10%C M, suggesting that complex fractionation might occur between hemolymph and calcifying fluids. Simple shell biometrics explained nearly 60% of the observed variability in %C M, however, this is not robust enough to predict %C M for fossil shells. Thus, the metabolic effect on shell δ 13C cannot easily be accounted for to allow reliable δ 13C DIC reconstructions. However, there does seem to be a common effect of size, as all sites had indistinguishable slopes between the %C M and shell height (+0.19% per mm of shell height).