Trophic connectivity and basal food sources sustaining tropical aquatic consumers along a mangrove to ocean gradient

Variations in the relative importance of autotrophic sources to aquatic consumers along environmental gradients and the trophic role of mangrove-derived detritus to marine coastal food webs are still poorly investigated in tropical systems. In this study, we employed stable isotope analyses to investigate the relative importance of basal food sources to macroconsumers (decapod crustaceans and fishes) in a tropical estuary along an environmental gradient extending from the mangroves to the ocean. Additionally, we evaluated the 'outwelling hypothesis', which hypothesizes that mangrove-derived detritus exported to the adjacent marine area is a food source for marine macroconsumers at open and reef-protected sandy beaches. Primary producers and macroconsumers (62 and 214 samples, respectively) were collected at five locations across the main longitudinal axis of the Mamanguape estuary, a tropical Southwestern Atlantic estuary. There were marked shifts in carbon and nitrogen isotope values for both food sources and consumers along the estuarine-marine gradient, and the mixing model results revealed similar patterns of assimilation of basal food sources by decapod crustaceans and fishes. In the inner section of the estuary, consumers tended to assimilated nutrients derived mainly from mangrove and macroalgae, whereas nearer the mouth of the estuary and in the adjacent marine area they assimilated nutrients derived mainly from macroalgae, seagrass and organic matter in the sediment (SOM). These findings support the hypothesis that the relative importance of basal food sources to macroconsumers in this tropical estuarine system reflects the dominant autochthonous primary production at each location. In contrast, our results did not support the outwelling hypothesis that mangrove-originated detritus, in the form of senescent mangrove leaves, makes a significant contribution as a primary source of carbon to high-order consumers inhabiting adjacent ocean sandy beaches.