Abstract
Polar marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the effects of
climate change. Warming temperatures, freshening seawater and disruption
to sea ice formation potentially all have detrimental cascading effects
on food webs. New approaches are needed to better understand
spatio-temporal interactions among biogeochemical processes at the base
of Southern Ocean food webs, and how these interactions vary seasonally.
In marine systems, isoscapes (models of the spatial variation in the
stable isotopic composition) of carbon and nitrogen identify the spatial
expression of varying biogeochemical processes on nutrient utilization
by phytoplankton. Isoscapes also provide a baseline for interpreting
stable isotope compositions of higher trophic level animals in movement,
migration and diet research. Here we produce carbon and nitrogen
isoscapes across the entire Southern Ocean (>40°S) using
surface particulate organic matter (POM) isotope data, collected from
multiple sources over the past 50 years and throughout the annual cycle.
We use Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation (INLA)-based approaches
to predict mean annual isoscapes and four seasonal isoscapes using a
suite of environmental data as predictor variables. Clear spatial
gradients in δ13C and δ15N values
were predicted across the Southern Ocean, consistent with previous
statistical and mechanistic isoscape views of isotopic variability in
this region. We identify strong seasonal variability in both carbon and
nitrogen isoscapes, with key implications for the use of static or
annual average isoscape baselines in animal studies attempting to
document seasonal migratory or foraging behaviours.