Inferences to estimate consumer's diet using stable isotopes: Insights from a dynamic mixing model

PLoS One. 2022 Feb 7;17(2):e0263454. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263454. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Stable isotope ratios are used to reconstruct animal diet in trophic ecology via mixing models. Several assumptions of stable isotope mixing models are critical, i.e., constant trophic discrimination factor and isotopic equilibrium between the consumer and its diet. The isotopic turnover rate (λ and its counterpart the half-life) affects the dynamics of isotopic incorporation for an organism and the isotopic equilibrium assumption: λ involves a time lag between the real assimilated diet and the diet estimated by mixing models at the individual scale. Current stable isotope mixing model studies consider neither this time lag nor even the dynamics of isotopic ratios in general. We developed a mechanistic framework using a dynamic mixing model (DMM) to assess the contribution of λ to the dynamics of isotopic incorporation and to estimate the bias induced by neglecting the time lag in diet reconstruction in conventional static mixing models (SMMs). The DMM includes isotope dynamics of sources (denoted δs), λ and frequency of diet-switch (ω). The results showed a significant bias generated by the SMM compared to the DMM (up to 50% of differences). This bias can be strongly reduced in SMMs by averaging the isotopic variations of the food sources over a time window equal to twice the isotopic half-life. However, the bias will persist (∼15%) for intermediate values of the ω/λ ratio. The inferences generated using a case study highlighted that DMM enhanced estimates of consumer's diet, and this could avoid misinterpretation in ecosystem functioning, food-web structure analysis and underlying biological processes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Behavior, Animal / physiology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Diet*
  • Ecosystem
  • Feeding Behavior / physiology*
  • Food Chain*
  • Half-Life
  • Isotopes / pharmacokinetics*
  • Statistics as Topic

Substances

  • Isotopes

Grants and funding

This study is part of the ISIT-U project funded by the French government as part of the Programme Investissement d’Avenir (I-SITE ULNE / ANR-16-IDEX-0004 ULNE) managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and by the Métropole Européenne de Lille. A.C. Parnell was further supported by Science Foundation Ireland Career Development Award 17/CDA/4695(T).