Sentence examples for trophic discrimination from inspiring English sources

Thus, ontogenetic changes in diet and trophic discrimination are unlikely to explain the intra-species variability observed.

In fact, it is increasingly being recognised that trophic discrimination has a high degree of variability around meta-analysis averages when examined for species or groups, e.g. [5] [7].

As such, season and location as factors in changes in trophic discrimination can only be examined for a selected number of species for which data could be obtained in different seasons and/or locations.

Despite the apparent variability and potential consequences, the extent to which changes in the many factors mentioned above can lead to differences in trophic discrimination within and between species in the field is not well quantified.

If one assumes that δN discrimination indicates relative trophic position and that the trophic shift of N is about 3, then gypsy ants range from one to two trophic steps above leaf litter, with a higher trophic position positively associated with the biomass of standing leaf litter.

This is however contrary to the general increase in discrimination with increasing trophic level (Figure 3a), and requires further investigation.

In order to correct for trophic fractionation, we applied a discrimination factor of 0.6‰ (s.d. = 0.4‰) for carbon and 3.9‰ (s.d. = 0.9‰) for nitrogen to the δ13C and δ15N values of mouse plasma, and a discrimination factor of 0.2‰ (s.d. = 0.5‰) for carbon and 2.0‰ (s.d. = 0.9‰) for nitrogen to the δ13C and δ15N values of mouse blood tissues [40].

In fact, diet quality appeared to have little influence on discrimination factors for any trophic groups in this study, with no significant relationships between discrimination factors and either tissue or gut C∶N, suggesting that factors other than diet quality led to differences in discrimination between trophic groups.

Consequently, for accurate estimates of diet or trophic position it is essential that discrimination factors be quantified, whether directly or by modelling e.g. [15], and variability accounted for in analyses (such as through Bayesian modelling, e.g. [21], [22]).

LDA of skull and tooth data provided moderate-to-high discrimination (80 100%) among the eight trophic guilds, with the exception of the two trophic clusters with fish-dominated diets (FA and FB), which overlapped substantially in morphology.

As predicted, total δN range fell within the tissue diet discrimination range (i.e., trophic fractionation range), observed in a controlled laboratory study of Loricariidae (4.1 5.2‰) [ 19], suggesting that loricariids essentially occupy a single trophic level within which δN variation corresponds to differences in dietary protein content [ 20].