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Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals

Measures (e.g. δ(15)N, δ(13)C, %C, %N and C:N) derived from animal tissues are commonly used to estimate diets and trophic interactions. Since tissue samples are often exposed to air or kept chilled in ice over a short-term during sample preparation, they may degrade. Herein, we hypothesize that tis...

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Autores principales: Perkins, Matthew J., Mak, Yanny K. Y., Tao, Lily S. R., Wong, Archer T. L., Yau, Jason K. C., Baker, David M., Leung, Kenneth M. Y.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6051570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30020988
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199680
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author Perkins, Matthew J.
Mak, Yanny K. Y.
Tao, Lily S. R.
Wong, Archer T. L.
Yau, Jason K. C.
Baker, David M.
Leung, Kenneth M. Y.
author_facet Perkins, Matthew J.
Mak, Yanny K. Y.
Tao, Lily S. R.
Wong, Archer T. L.
Yau, Jason K. C.
Baker, David M.
Leung, Kenneth M. Y.
author_sort Perkins, Matthew J.
collection PubMed
description Measures (e.g. δ(15)N, δ(13)C, %C, %N and C:N) derived from animal tissues are commonly used to estimate diets and trophic interactions. Since tissue samples are often exposed to air or kept chilled in ice over a short-term during sample preparation, they may degrade. Herein, we hypothesize that tissue decomposition will cause changes in these measures. In this study, we kept marine fish, crustacean and mollusc tissues in air or ice over 120 h (5 days). We found that tissue decomposition in air enriched δ(15)N (range 0.6‰ to 1.3‰) and δ(13)C (0.2‰ to 0.4‰), decreased %N (0.47 to 3.43 percentage points from staring values of ~13%) and %C (4.53 to 8.29 percentage points from starting values of ~43%), and subsequently increased C:N ratio (0.14 to 0.75). In air, while such changes to δ(13)C were relatively minor and therefore likely tolerable, changes in δ(15)N, %N, %C and C:N ratio should be interpreted with caution. Ice effectively reduced the extent to which decomposition enriched δ(15)N (≤ 0.4‰) and δ(13)C (≤ 0.2‰), and eliminated decomposition in C:N ratio, %N and %C. In our second experiment, for fish tissues in either air or ice over 120 h, we observed no effects of decomposition on relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C (change in δ(13)C after lipid removal), which are employed to correct δ(13)C for samples containing lipid. We also confirmed that lipid in tissues caused large errors when estimating δ(13)C (mean ± standard error = -1.8‰ ± 0.1‰, range -0.6‰ to -3.8‰), and showed both lipid extraction and mathematical correction performed equally well to correct for lipids when estimating δ(13)C. We, therefore, recommend that specimens of marine animals should be kept in ice during sample preparation for a short-term, as it is an effective means for minimizing changes of the stable isotope measures in their tissue.
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spelling pubmed-60515702018-07-27 Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals Perkins, Matthew J. Mak, Yanny K. Y. Tao, Lily S. R. Wong, Archer T. L. Yau, Jason K. C. Baker, David M. Leung, Kenneth M. Y. PLoS One Research Article Measures (e.g. δ(15)N, δ(13)C, %C, %N and C:N) derived from animal tissues are commonly used to estimate diets and trophic interactions. Since tissue samples are often exposed to air or kept chilled in ice over a short-term during sample preparation, they may degrade. Herein, we hypothesize that tissue decomposition will cause changes in these measures. In this study, we kept marine fish, crustacean and mollusc tissues in air or ice over 120 h (5 days). We found that tissue decomposition in air enriched δ(15)N (range 0.6‰ to 1.3‰) and δ(13)C (0.2‰ to 0.4‰), decreased %N (0.47 to 3.43 percentage points from staring values of ~13%) and %C (4.53 to 8.29 percentage points from starting values of ~43%), and subsequently increased C:N ratio (0.14 to 0.75). In air, while such changes to δ(13)C were relatively minor and therefore likely tolerable, changes in δ(15)N, %N, %C and C:N ratio should be interpreted with caution. Ice effectively reduced the extent to which decomposition enriched δ(15)N (≤ 0.4‰) and δ(13)C (≤ 0.2‰), and eliminated decomposition in C:N ratio, %N and %C. In our second experiment, for fish tissues in either air or ice over 120 h, we observed no effects of decomposition on relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C (change in δ(13)C after lipid removal), which are employed to correct δ(13)C for samples containing lipid. We also confirmed that lipid in tissues caused large errors when estimating δ(13)C (mean ± standard error = -1.8‰ ± 0.1‰, range -0.6‰ to -3.8‰), and showed both lipid extraction and mathematical correction performed equally well to correct for lipids when estimating δ(13)C. We, therefore, recommend that specimens of marine animals should be kept in ice during sample preparation for a short-term, as it is an effective means for minimizing changes of the stable isotope measures in their tissue. Public Library of Science 2018-07-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6051570/ /pubmed/30020988 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199680 Text en © 2018 Perkins et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Perkins, Matthew J.
Mak, Yanny K. Y.
Tao, Lily S. R.
Wong, Archer T. L.
Yau, Jason K. C.
Baker, David M.
Leung, Kenneth M. Y.
Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals
title Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals
title_full Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals
title_fullStr Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals
title_full_unstemmed Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals
title_short Short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and C:N ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, C:N ratio, and Δδ(13)C in marine animals
title_sort short-term tissue decomposition alters stable isotope values and c:n ratio, but does not change relationships between lipid content, c:n ratio, and δδ(13)c in marine animals
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6051570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30020988
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199680
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