Trophic Structure Analysis using DNA barcodes and Stable isotopes

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Understanding the trophic structure of a community is indispensable to understanding the underlying ecosystem in its entirety. Stable isotope analysis is an invaluable technique for reconstructing diets, characterizing trophic relationships, elucidating patterns of resource allocation, and constructing food webs. Similarly, DNA barcodes have much utility in revealing trophic interactions among organisms and determining diet items but they often can only provide a snapshot of mostly local, present-day interactions. Thus, stable isotope analysis can complement DNA barcoding techniques by adding coarser but more integrated averages of food web structure across space and time. In addition it allows for tracing nutrient fluxes in changing organismal communities. The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO) is a world-leading research platform best known for its role in advancing DNA barcoding as a new approach for specimen identification and species discovery. This application requests funding to purchase equipment necessary to establish a stable isotope facility at BIO to further explore the complementary aspects of DNA barcoding and stable isotope ratios in research related to trophic and ecosystems ecology. BIO’s staff has extensive experience in the processing of specimens (curation, databasing, tissue sampling, photography, taxonomy) which would allow for the seamless integration of the new analytical platform. This request seeks the support needed to obtain the instrumentation needed to ascertain three standard stable isotopic signatures commonly used in ecology (δ¹³C, δ¹5N, and δ³4S), as well as equipment needed for sample preparation. This equipment would support four research streams: examining the dietary diversity of Lepidoptera, investigating the impact of agriculture on food web structure, historical diet reconstruction in birds, and tracing carbon flux in changing plant communities.