Determination of food sources and trophic position in Malaysian tropical highland streams using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes

Stable isotope analysis has been extensively used as an effective tool in determination of trophic relationship in ecosystems. In freshwater ecosystem, aquatic invertebrates represent main component of a river food web. This study was carried out to determine potential food sources of freshwater organism together with pattern of trophic position along the river food web. In this study, rivers of Belum-Temengor Forest Complex (BTFC) has been selected as sampling site as it is a pristine area that contains high diversity and abundance of organisms and can be a benchmark for other rivers in Malaysia. Stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) were applied to estimate trophic position and food web paradigm. Analysis of stable isotopes based on organic material collected from the study area revealed that the highest δ13C value was reported from filamentous algae (− 22.68 ± 0.1260/00) and the lowest δ13C was in allocthonous leaf packs (− 31.58 ± 0.1870/00). Meanwhile the highest δ15N value was in fish (8.45 ± 0.1770/00) and the lowest value of δ15N was in autochthonous aquatic macrophyte (2.00 ± 1.2340/00). Based on the δ15N results, there are three trophic levels in the study river and it is suggested that the trophic chain begins with organic matter followed by group of insects and ends with fish (organic matter < insects < fish).