Lipid extraction has little effect on the delta N-15 of aquatic consumers

Proper application of stable isotopes (e. g., delta N-15 and delta C-13) to food web analysis requires an understanding of all nondietary factors that contribute to isotopic variability. Lipid extraction is often used during stable isotope analysis (SIA), because synthesized lipids have a low delta C-13 and can mask the delta C-13 of a consumer's diet. Recent studies indicate that lipid extraction intended to adjust delta C-13 may also cause shifts in delta N-15, but the magnitude of and reasons for the shift are highly uncertain. We examined a large data set (n = 854) for effects of lipid extraction (using Bligh and dyer's [ 1959] chloroform-methanol solvent mixtures) on the delta N-15 of aquatic consumers. We found no effect of chemically extracting lipids on the delta N-15 of whole zooplankton, unionid mussels, and fish liver samples, and found a small increase in fish muscle delta N-15 of similar to 0.4%. We also detected a negative relationship between the shift in delta N-15 following extraction and the C:N ratio in muscle tissue, suggesting that effects of extraction were greater for tissue with lower lipid content. As long as appropriate techniques such as those from Bligh and dyer (1959) are used, effects of lipid extraction on delta N-15 of aquatic consumers need not be a major consideration in the SIA of food webs.

A Context-Dependent Algorithm for Merging Uncertain Information in Possibility Theory

The need to merge multiple sources of uncertaininformation is an important issue in many application areas,especially when there is potential for contradictions betweensources. Possibility theory offers a flexible framework to represent,and reason with, uncertain information, and there isa range of merging operators, such as the conjunctive anddisjunctive operators, for combining information. However, withthe proposals to date, the context of the information to be mergedis largely ignored during the process of selecting which mergingoperators to use. To address this shortcoming, in this paper,we propose an adaptive merging algorithm which selects largelypartially maximal consistent subsets (LPMCSs) of sources, thatcan be merged through relaxation of the conjunctive operator, byassessing the coherence of the information in each subset. In thisway, a fusion process can integrate both conjunctive and disjunctiveoperators in a more flexible manner and thereby be morecontext dependent. A comparison with related merging methodsshows how our algorithm can produce a more consensual result.

Lipid content and fatty acid composition of the digital cushion of bulls offered different amounts of linseed

Previous research suggests that the digital cushion, a shock-absorbing structure in the claw, plays an important role in protecting cattle from lameness. This study aimed to assess the degree to which nutritional factors influence the composition of the digital cushion. This involved quantifying lipid content and fatty acid composition differences in digital cushion tissue from cattle offered diets with different amounts of linseed. Forty-six bulls were allocated to 1 of 4 treatments, which were applied for an average of 140 +/- 27 d during the finishing period. The treatments consisted of a linseed supplement offered once daily on top of the basal diet (grass silage:concentrate) at 0, 400, 800, or 1,200 g of supplement/animal per day. For each treatment, the concentrate offered was adjusted to ensure that total estimated ME intake was constant across treatments. Target BW at slaughter was 540 kg. Legs were collected in 3 batches after 120, 147 and 185 d on experiment. Six samples of the digital cushion were dissected from the right lateral hind claw of each animal. Lipids were extracted and expressed as a proportion of fresh tissue, and fatty acid composition of the digital cushion was determined by gas chromatography. Data were analyzed by ANOVA, with diet, location within the digital cushion, and their interactions as fixed effects and fat content (grams per 100 g of tissue) as a covariate. Linear or quadratic contrasts were examined. The lipid content of digital cushion tissue differed between sampling locations (P