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Biomass Transfer Subsidizes Nitrogen to Offshore Food Webs
Authors:James A Nelson  Christopher D Stallings  William M Landing  Jeffery Chanton
Institution:1. Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, 117 N. Woodward Ave., Tallahassee, Florida, 32306, USA
2. Ecosystem Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL St., Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 02543, USA
3. Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, 3618 Coastal Highway 98, St. Teresa, Florida, 32358, USA
4. College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, 140 7th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701, USA
Abstract:We evaluated the potential contribution of allochthonous biomass subsidies to the upper trophic levels of offshore food webs in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM). We made this evaluation considering nitrogen, an essential and often limiting nutrient in coastal ecosystems, to estimate the potential production of within-ecosystem biomass relative to the known import of biomass from an adjacent seagrass-dominated ecosystem. When adjusted for trophic transfer efficiency, we found the biomass subsidy from a single species (pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides) from nearshore seagrass habitat to the offshore GOM to be greater than the amount of nitrogen exported by two major rivers and local submarine ground water discharge. Our calculations show that seagrass-derived biomass accounts for approximately 25% of the total potential production in the northeastern GOM. This estimate is in agreement with a previous study that found 18.5–25% of the biomass in a predatory reef fish was derived from seagrass biomass inputs. These results indicate that all of the sources we consider account for the majority of the nitrogen available to the food web in the northeastern GOM. Our approach could be adapted to other coupled ecosystems to determine the relative importance of biomass subsidies to coastal ocean food webs.
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