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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Nick Polunin, Dr Christopher Sweeting, Dr Steve Newman
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Lipids affect stable isotope values generated for marine fishes, however these effects remain poorly described for many extant shark taxa, especially deep-sea species. Here, we report the effects of lipid extraction (LE) on δ13C, δ15N, and C:N values of seven deep-sea sharks, generate novel mathematical normalizations for δ13C based on the relationship between bulk and lipid extracted values (δ13CBulk and δ13CLE) and examine whether common normalized correction models provide a robust method for addressing lipid-biasing effects in two species, the Cuban dogfish (Squalus cubensis; n = 20), and Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus; n = 24). LE generally resulted in enrichment of 13C and 15N, but produced variable effects on C:N across all species. Novel mathematical normalizations for δ13C were derived from the pooled shark community, and a single species-specific correction was generated for the Cuban dogfish, but could not be determined for the Greenland shark. Four common lipid correction models used for teleosts, failed to accurately predict δ13C values statistically similar to δ13CLE, in both Cuban dogfish and Greenland sharks, likely due to the confounding effects of lipids and urea on C:N. These observations suggest that chemical lipid extraction should be a mandatory procedure prior to interpreting stable isotope data for deep-sea sharks, at least for those species where lipid effects are large.
Author(s): Shipley ON, Olin JA, Polunin NVC, Sweeting CJ, Newman SP, Brooks EJ, Barker S, Witt MJ, Talwar B, Hussey NE
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
Year: 2017
Volume: 494
Pages: 69-74
Print publication date: 01/09/2017
Online publication date: 02/06/2017
Acceptance date: 05/05/2017
Date deposited: 22/08/2017
ISSN (print): 0022-0981
Publisher: Elsevier BV
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2017.05.002
DOI: 10.1016/j.jembe.2017.05.002
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