Despite their high abundance and diversity, benthic meiofauna have so far been largely understudied in terms of their role in the food web. Stable isotope analyses on invertebrates can provide useful information on the carbon resource and the organic matter pathways, as well as on the position of an organism to the trophic web (‘you are what you eat’ concept). Within the project framework, we have collected invertebrates from a wide range of tropical aquatic habitats from the coast of Kenya (Gazi bay), including keystone habitats such as mangrove forests and seagrass beds, which are considered important carbon sinks. We aim to quantify the contribution of different organic matter sources from important coastal habitats to the meiobenthic organisms using natural stable isotope analysis. This professional practice will focus on meiobenthos identification to species or functional groups and steps of sample preparation for natural stable isotope analyses, in order to approach trophic diversity.
A contingency plan due to Covid19 restrictions can be decided together with the student and can include: (i) Data analysis of already obtained data in the same context, Bayesian modelling in R to elucidate trophic niches and the contribution of different resources to the diet of meiofauna. (ii) Use available data to build a food web model (ecological modelling approach - Ecosim) to explore whether differences in the isotopic signatures can also reflect structural differences in the food webs.
