- Title
- Fatty acid analyses provide novel insights on hippo defecation and consequences for aquatic food webs
- Creator
- Dawson, Jessica, Pillay, Deena, Perissinotto, Renzo, Richoux, Nicole B
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/454346
- Identifier
- vital:75337
- Identifier
- xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68369-5"
- Description
- By defecating grasses into aquatic systems at massive scales and intensities, hippos can initiate complex changes to aquatic ecosystems. However, consequent effects on food webs are not well understood, particularly regarding shifts in basal resource contributions to consumer diets and their physiological condition. Here, we use fatty acid analysis to show that dense hippo aggregations and high dung loading are associated with (1) alterations to basal resource pools, (2) reduced quality of sediment organic matter and (3) increases in terrestrial and bacterial biomarker levels, but declines in those of diatoms in estuarine secondary consumers. While hippo defecation can increase boundary permeability between terrestrial and aquatic systems, our findings indicate that this may lead to a shift from a microphytobenthic food web base to one with increasing bacterial contributions to higher consumers. Our findings expand understanding of the mechanisms by which an iconic African megaherbivore indirectly structures aquatic ecosystems.
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (15 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- Scientific Reports
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Scientific Reports, Dawson, J., Pillay, D., Perissinotto, R. and Richoux, N.B., 2020. Fatty acid analyses provide novel insights on hippo defecation and consequences for aquatic food webs. Scientific Reports, 10(1), p.12039, Scientific Reports volume 10 number 1 p. 12039 2020 2045-2322
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Scientific Reports Statement (https://www.nature.com/srep/open-access)
- Rights
- Closed Access
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Collections
Richoux, Nicole Bertine (Assoc Prof)
RU Department of Zoology and Entomology
SDG 15. Life On Land
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | Fatty acid analyses provide novel insights on hippo defecation and consequences for aquatic food webs.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |