Abstract
Animal-mediated nutrient dynamics are critical processes in ecosystems. Previous research has found animal-mediated nutrient supply (excretion) to be highly predictable based on allometric scaling, but similar efforts to find universal predictive relationships for an organism’s body nutrient content have been inconclusive. We use a large dataset from a diverse tropical marine community to test three frameworks for predicting body nutrient content. We show that body nutrient content does not follow allometric scaling laws and that it is not well explained by trophic status. Instead, we find strong support for taxonomic identity (particularly at the family level) as a predictor of body nutrient content, indicating that evolutionary history plays a crucial role in determining an organism’s composition. We further find that nutrients are “stoichiometrically linked” (e.g., %C predicts %N), but that the direction of these relationships does not always conform to expectations, especially for invertebrates. Our findings demonstrate that taxonomic identity, not trophic status or body size, is the best baseline from which to predict organismal body nutrient content.
Highlights
Animal-mediated nutrient dynamics are critical processes in ecosystems
Our findings demonstrate that taxonomic identity, not trophic status or body size, is the best baseline from which to predict organismal body nutrient content
We found that animal body nutrient concentration was poorly explained by the basic traits of an individual organism, but instead was best explained by the taxonomic rank of family
Summary
Previous research has found animal-mediated nutrient supply (excretion) to be highly predictable based on allometric scaling, but similar efforts to find universal predictive relationships for an organism’s body nutrient content have been inconclusive. Nutrients frequently limit key ecosystem processes, such as primary production[5], and animals can represent a major source of labile nutrients through their excretion, at times alleviating nutrient l imitation[6,7,8] Because they are often the dominant pool of biomass ( in many aquatic systems), animals can represent an important reservoir of nutrients stored in their t issue[9]. An indicator of an organism’s relative demand for nutrients, is a product of myriad evolutionary, ecological, and environmental factors[19,20]. Ecological (e.g., diet) and environmental (e.g., temperature) factors, on the other hand, influence physiological processes and may affect body nutrient
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