Fatty acids are commonly used as biomarkers for making inferences about trophic relationships in aquatic and soil food webs. However, researchers are often unaware of the physiological constraints within organisms on the trophic transfer and modification of dietary biomarkers in consumers. Fatty acids are bioactive molecules, which have diverse structures and functions that both complicate and enhance their value as trophic tracers. For instance, consumers may synthesize confounding non-dietary sourced markers from precursor molecules, and environmental conditions also affect fatty acid composition. There is a vital need for more research on the uptake and transfer of trophic biomarkers in individual organisms in order to advance the field and make meaningful use of these tools at the scale of populations or ecosystems. This special issue is focused on controlled feeding experiments on a diverse taxonomic breadth of model consumers from freshwater, marine and soil ecosystems with a goal of creating a more integrated understanding of the connection between consumer physiology and trophic ecology. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The next horizons for lipids as ‘trophic biomarkers’: evidence and significance of consumer modification of dietary fatty acids'.

中文翻译：

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基于生物标记的营养生态学实验的至关重要


脂肪酸通常用作生物标志物，用于推断水生和土壤食物网中的营养关系。然而，研究人员常常不知道生物体内对消费者营养转移和饮食生物标志物修饰的生理限制。脂肪酸是生物活性分子，具有不同的结构和功能，这既使其复杂化又增强了其作为营养示踪剂的价值。例如，消费者可能会从前体分子合成混杂的非饮食来源标记物，并且环境条件也会影响脂肪酸组成。迫切需要对个体生物体中营养生物标志物的吸收和转移进行更多研究，以推动该领域的发展并在种群或生态系统规模上有意义地利用这些工具。本期特刊重点关注对来自淡水、海洋和土壤生态系统的不同分类范围的模型消费者进行的受控喂养实验，目的是对消费者生理学和营养生态学之间的联系建立更全面的理解。本文是主题“脂质作为‘营养生物标志物’的下一个前景：消费者改变膳食脂肪酸的证据和意义”的一部分。