It takes time to see the menu from the body: an experiment on stable isotope composition in freshwater crayfishes

For many applications and ecological studies in which wild individuals are brought to laboratory it would be essential to know accurately how fast novel diet is reflected in composition of different tissues. To study the effects of two different diets on the stable isotope composition of freshwater crayfish muscle and hemolymph, we conducted a three month experiment on noble crayfish (Astacus astacus) and signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) by feeding them sweet corn (Zea mays) or Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras) as novel food. During the experiment, the cray- fish were given 0.4 g of selected food daily and the amount consumed was recorded. The samples for the stable isotope analyses were taken at the commencement of the experiment (initial control) and three times (hemolymph) or twice (muscle tissue) during the experiment. We found that stable isotope changes can be similarly, and rather slowly, detected from muscle tissue and hemolymph under studied conditions. Hemolymph sampling, being non-lethal, can be recommended as a practical sampling method. Our results confirm earlier reports according to which diet changes reflect to crayfish isotope ratios slowly implying that isotope ratios indicate long-term diet.