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Human activities increasingly impact the functioning of marine food webs, but anthropogenic stressors are seldom included in ecological study designs. Diet quality, as distinct from just diet quantity, has moreover rarely been highlighted in food web studies in a stress context. We measured the effects of metal and pesticide stress (copper and atrazine) on the contribution of a benthic intertidal diatom community to two processes that are key to the functioning of intertidal systems: biomass (diet quantity) and lipid (diet quality) production. We then examined if stressors affected diatom functioning by selectively targeting the species contributing most to functioning (selective stress effects) or by changing the species’ functional contribution (context‐dependent effects). Finally, we tested if stress‐induced changes in diet quality altered the energy flow to the diatoms’ main grazers (harpacticoid copepods). Diatom diet quantity was reduced by metal stress but not by low pesticide levels due to the presence of an atrazine‐tolerant, mixotrophic species. Selective effects of the pesticide reduced diatom diet quality by 60% and 75% at low and high pesticide levels respectively, by shifting diatom community structure from dominance by lipid‐rich species toward dominance by an atrazine‐tolerant, but lipid‐poor, species. Context‐dependent effects did not affect individual diatom lipid content at low levels of both stressors, but caused diatoms to lose 40% of their lipids at high copper stress. Stress‐induced changes in diet quality predicted the energy flow from the diatoms to their copepod consumers, which lost half of their lipids when feeding on diatoms grown under low and high pesticide and high metal stress. Selective pesticide effects were a more important threat for trophic energy transfer than context‐dependent effects of both stressors, with shifts in diatom community structure affecting the energy flow to their copepod grazers at stress levels where no changes in diatom lipid content were detected.

Pesticides and metals are often used in agriculture and are therefore often simultaneously discharged to nearby estuarine and marine areas. The effects of this organic-inorganic chemical mixture on food quality of aquatic organisms are currently unknown. In this study we test if a mixture of copper (inorganic) and the herbicide Primextra® Gold TZ (organic) affects the quality of the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii and the copepod Acartia tonsa - two key species that fuel the local food-web. We quantified quality (i.e. energy content as food for the next trophic level) in terms of fatty acids, proteins and thiobarbituric acid reacting substances. We found non-additive effects (positive and negative) of the metal-herbicide mixture on the diatom and copepod species. In general, nutritionally important biochemical parameters of Acartia tonsa were most sensitive to the chemical stressors.

Knowledge of the food web structure and complexity are central to better understand ecosystem functioning. A food-web approach includes both species and energy flows among them, providing a natural framework for characterizing species’ ecological roles and the mechanisms through which biodiversity influences ecosystem dynamics. Here we present for the first time a high-resolution food web for a marine ecosystem at Potter Cove (northern Antarctic Peninsula). Eleven food web properties were analyzed in order to document network complexity, structure and topology. We found a low linkage density (3.4), connectance (0.04) and omnivory percentage (45), as well as a short path length (1.8) and a low clustering coefficient (0.08). Furthermore, relating the structure of the food web to its dynamics, an exponential degree distribution (in- and out-links) was found. This suggests that the Potter Cove food web may be vulnerable if the most connected species became locally extinct. For two of the three more connected functional groups, competition overlap graphs imply high trophic interaction between demersal fish and niche specialization according to feeding strategies in amphipods. On the other hand, the prey overlap graph shows also that multiple energy pathways of carbon flux exist across benthic and pelagic habitats in the Potter Cove ecosystem. Although alternative food sources might add robustness to the web, network properties (low linkage density, connectance and omnivory) suggest fragility and potential trophic cascade effects.

The development of industrial, anthropogenic, and agricultural activities is the main factor leading to contaminants’ increasing in marine ecosystems. Contaminants include the great variety of pesticides and heavy metal pollutants. One of the major environmental concerns about herbicides and heavy metals contamination is their bioaccumulation in the ecosystem's primary producers and its subsequent propagation through the trophic chain. Over the last decades, the use of biochemical markers considerably contributed to the evaluation of contamination hazards. The fatty acid composition proved to be a good bioindicator to assess contamination levels. This paper provides a review of current knowledge on the fatty acids response in marine species after exposure to the chemical stressors including organic and inorganic pollutants, mainly pesticides and heavy metals. This review underlines the consistent directional trends in changes of saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and summarizes the mechanisms of action leading to their alteration and possible consequences of these changes to marine species from different trophic levels.

Copepods of the genus Acartia occur worldwide and constitute an important link to higher trophic levels in estuaries. However, biogeographical shifts in copepod assemblages and colonization of certain European estuaries by the invader A. tonsa, both driven or enhanced by increasing ocean temperature, raise the pressure on autochthonous copepod communities. Despite the profound effect of temperature on all levels of biological organization, its impact on the fatty acid (FA) dynamics of Acartia species is understudied. As certain FAs exert a bottom-up control on the trophic structure of aquatic ecosystems, temperature-induced changes in FA dynamics of Acartia species may impact higher trophic levels. Therefore, this study documents the short-term temperature responses of A. tonsa and A. clausi, characterized by their warm- versus cold-water preference respectively, by analyzing the FA profiles of their membrane and storage lipids under 5 and 15° C. Copepods that were fed an ad libitum diet of the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii (bloom conditions) under 15° C increased their storage FA content substantially. Furthermore, the membrane FA composition of A. tonsa showed a more profound temperature response compared with A. clausi which might be linked with the eurythermal character of the former.

An experiment was carried out investigating the colonization ability and specific pattern of copepods towards a provisional benthic habitat. Since copepods are known to disperse passively and actively, the experiment aimed to investigate the pool of colonizers of macrophytodetritus and the species-specific active colonization pathways. The experiment was performed in a Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica meadow on defaunated macrophytodetritus accumulations (mainly dead seagrass leaves) for two time intervals (24 and 96 h). Active colonization by copepods, independently of their adjacent potential source pool habitat (bare sandy sediments, P. oceanica canopy, water column and macrophytodetritus) occurred within 24 h. Natural densities (as in the control treatments) were only reached by active colonization through the water column. Both neither diversities nor species composition of natural macrophytodetritus were ever reached by one single migratory pathway, therefore only a combination of interstitial migration and water column migration can explain the species occurrence under natural condition. Moreover, every potential adjacent source pool habitat contributed species to the newly colonized macrophytodetritus. However, the main colonizers were mostly species with good swimming capabilities. The diverse pool of species present in the newly colonized macrophytodetritus underlines the complex communities and dispersion capabilities of copepods. Hence, macrophytodetritus possesses the potential ability to be a colonizer source pool for every adjacent habitat and thus behaves as a copepod hub for the entire seagrass ecosystem.