TY - JOUR
T1 - Niche separation between two dominant crustacean predators in European estuarine soft-bottom habitats
AU - Siegenthaler, A.
AU - Wangensteen, Owen S.
AU - Benvenuto, Chiara
AU - Lollobrigidi, Riccardo
AU - Mariani, Stefano
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to express our thanks to C. Adiele, A. Bio, J. Campos, T. Ferraz, R. Fraser, A. Goossens, P. Oldfield and E. Siegenthaler for their fundamental assistance in sample collection; C. Hide and M. Patel for their assistance in the laboratory and A. Mastin for his advice on data analysis. Funding: This work was supported by: the University of Salford UK; the Mersey Gateway Environmental Trust; the Santander Advantage fund; and the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number NE/N005759/1].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022
PY - 2022/5/1
Y1 - 2022/5/1
N2 - Epibenthic predators in estuarine shallow soft-bottom environments are generally considered to have broad ecological niches with a wide overlap. This allows them to cope with abundant but highly variable prey communities. The assessment of trophic relationships in shallow soft-bottom habitats is, however, challenging and often complicated by the bias and low resolution of the analytical tools available to study diet in relatively small invertebrates. This study investigates niche overlap between two dominant epibenthic predators in European estuarine soft-bottom environments, the brown shrimp (Crangon crangon L.) and the European green crab (Carcinus maenas L.), by means of trophic DNA-metabarcoding with universal primers for cytochrome c oxidase I (COI). Results show differences in diet composition between the two predators, despite the fact that both species are opportunistic generalists with a high overlap in prey items (218 overlapping Molecular Taxonomic Units). The European green crab showed a richer, more even, and more geographically consistent diet than the brown shrimp, with fairly balanced consumption of algal, arthropod, annelid and mollusc food items. The brown shrimp instead preferred arthropods and annelids, and showed more spatial variation in diet. The observed niche separation could be linked to behavioural variation between the two predators, with European green crab showing more active movements over shallow soft-bottom environments compared to the brown shrimp, which regularly stays buried in the sediment, ambushing its prey. An accurate understanding of the trophic ecology of these estuarine crustaceans is important to capitalise on their role as sentinel organisms since their diet reflects local diversity and can result in toxin bioaccumulation. This study provides new insights in the predator–prey relationships and food web dynamics in European estuaries and highlights the importance of trophic DNA-metabarcoding to study marine food webs.
AB - Epibenthic predators in estuarine shallow soft-bottom environments are generally considered to have broad ecological niches with a wide overlap. This allows them to cope with abundant but highly variable prey communities. The assessment of trophic relationships in shallow soft-bottom habitats is, however, challenging and often complicated by the bias and low resolution of the analytical tools available to study diet in relatively small invertebrates. This study investigates niche overlap between two dominant epibenthic predators in European estuarine soft-bottom environments, the brown shrimp (Crangon crangon L.) and the European green crab (Carcinus maenas L.), by means of trophic DNA-metabarcoding with universal primers for cytochrome c oxidase I (COI). Results show differences in diet composition between the two predators, despite the fact that both species are opportunistic generalists with a high overlap in prey items (218 overlapping Molecular Taxonomic Units). The European green crab showed a richer, more even, and more geographically consistent diet than the brown shrimp, with fairly balanced consumption of algal, arthropod, annelid and mollusc food items. The brown shrimp instead preferred arthropods and annelids, and showed more spatial variation in diet. The observed niche separation could be linked to behavioural variation between the two predators, with European green crab showing more active movements over shallow soft-bottom environments compared to the brown shrimp, which regularly stays buried in the sediment, ambushing its prey. An accurate understanding of the trophic ecology of these estuarine crustaceans is important to capitalise on their role as sentinel organisms since their diet reflects local diversity and can result in toxin bioaccumulation. This study provides new insights in the predator–prey relationships and food web dynamics in European estuaries and highlights the importance of trophic DNA-metabarcoding to study marine food webs.
KW - Crustacean
KW - Cytochrome c oxidase I (COI)
KW - Estuaries
KW - Metabarcoding
KW - Niche overlap
KW - Trophic ecology
KW - UT-Gold-D
KW - ITC-ISI-JOURNAL-ARTICLE
KW - ITC-GOLD
UR - https://ezproxy2.utwente.nl/login?url=https://library.itc.utwente.nl/login/2022/isi/siegenthaler_nic.pdf
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108839
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108839
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85128855970
VL - 138
JO - Ecological indicators
JF - Ecological indicators
SN - 1470-160X
M1 - 108839
ER -