Experimental determination of the temperature dependence of oxygen-isotope fractionation between water and chitinous head capsules of chironomid larvae

Abstract

Oxygen-isotope values of invertebrate cuticle preserved in lake sediments have been used in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, generally with the assumption that fractionation of oxygen isotopes between cuticle and water (upalpha_{text{cuticle}-text{H}_{2}text{O}}) is independent of temperature. We cultured chironomid larvae in the laboratory with labelled oxygen-isotope water and across a range of closely controlled temperatures from 5 to 25 °C in order to test the hypothesis that fractionation of oxygen isotopes between chironomid head capsules and water (upalpha_{text{chironomid}-text{H}_{2}text{O}}) is independent of temperature. Results indicate that the hypothesis can be rejected, and that upalpha_{text{chironomid}-text{H}_{2}text{O}} decreases with increasing temperature. The scatter in the data suggests that further experiments are needed to verify the relationship. However, these results indicate that temperature-dependence of upalpha_{text{chironomid}-text{H}_{2}text{O}} should be considered when chironomid δ18O is used as a paleoenvironmental proxy, especially in cases where data from chironomids are combined with oxygen-isotope values from other materials for which fractionation is temperature dependent, such as calcite, in order to derive reconstructions of past water temperature.