Quantifying the effect of variability in food quality on energy transfer and secondary production in a coastal marine food web

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In recent years, stable isotopes and fatty acids have emerged as popular tools for tracing energy transfer in marine food webs. However, a key assumption, that variations in the composition and quality of food available near the base of the food web produce measurable effects in production at higher trophic levels has yet to be properly tested. Most studies of this sort have only used either one technique or the other (i.e. either stable isotopes or fatty acids) to trace energy flow. Although some of these elements have been combined in lab studies, the range of conditions used are generally outside the realistic range of conditions typically encountered in the field. To date, virtually no studies have directly measured the extent to which (or even whether) variations in food quality near the base of the marine food chain (i.e. phytoplankton) do produce a detectable response in secondary production (i.e. zooplankton production) under natural field conditions.