Food web structure in a rapidly changing coastal environment: the West Antarctic Peninsula

The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is one of the most rapidly changing regions in the world, in great part due to anthropogenic climate change. Steep environmental gradients in water temperature, sea ice cover and glacier melting influence are observed, but much is left to document about significance of those shifts for biological communities and ecosystem processes. Here, we aimed to study how environmental changes impact trophic interactions and ecological habits of benthic communities along the WAP. During the Belgica 121 expedition, dominant benthic mega- and macrofauna, as well as primary producers, were sampled in multiple stations featuring contrasted environmental conditions around the Gerlache Strait. Stable isotope ratios of δ 13C, δ15N and δ34S were measured and combined in an isotope niche analysis (SIBER). Our results suggest that changes in environmental features, notably ice disturbance, could cause alteration of food sources availability and fluxes to benthic organisms. Isotopic compositions of abundant species were more variable in stations with stronger ice disturbance. Besides baseline variability, this could be linked with use of alternative resources (niche expansion) in stations influenced by glacier melting. Those results provide a first step towards understanding links between environmental change and ecological responses of benthic consumers along the WAP.