Jill A. Olin

Stony Brook University | Stony Brook · School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

Large-scale ecosystem disturbances can alter the flow of energy through food webs, but such processes are not well defined for Gulf of Mexico saltmarsh ecosystems vulnerable to multiple interacting stressors. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill significantly affected the composition of terrestrial saltmarsh communities in Louisiana, and thus...

Identifying key taxa in the response of ecosystems to perturbations relies on quantifying both their sensitivity to stressors and their importance in the overall web of interactions. If sensitive taxa occupy key network positions, then they may decrease the capacity of ecosystems to resist perturbations. Despite widespread concern for coastal marsh...

In addition to external oiling, marine oil spills may affect vertebrate animals through degradation of habitat; alterations in food web structure; and contamination of resources by toxic compounds, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These processes are not well understood for vertebrates breeding and foraging in terrestrial ecosystems affe...

Measures of trophic position (TP) are critical for understanding food web interactions and human-mediated ecosystem disturbance. Nitrogen stable isotopes (δ(15) N) provide a powerful tool to estimate TP but are limited by a pragmatic assumption that isotope discrimination is constant (change in δ(15) N between predator and prey, Δ(15) N = 3.4‰), re...

Freshwater inflow from riverine sources is essential for estuarine productivity. However, human alterations to freshwater flow have resulted in modifications to the seasonal complexities of estuarine communities. To quantify changes in energy transfer at the trophic guild and consumer levels that result from anthropogenic-altered flow, we evaluated...

Advancing ecological restoration assessments requires a more detailed consideration of species interactions and ecosystem processes. Most restoration projects rely on a few metrics not always directly linked with ecological theory. Here, we used Odum's theory of ecosystem development to assess and compare the ecosystem structure and services of cre...

Recent spikes in interactions between humans and sharks in the New York Bight have sparked widespread reporting of possible causalities, many of which lack empirical support. Here we comment on the current state of knowledge regarding shark biology and management in New York waters emphasizing that the possible drivers of increased human–shark inte...

The abundances of migratory shark species observed throughout the Mid‐Atlantic Bight (MAB) during productive summer months suggest that this region provides critical habitat and prey resources to these taxa. However, the principal prey assemblages sustaining migratory shark biomass in this region are poorly defined. We applied high‐throughput DNA m...

The Deepwater Horizon disaster released 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite clear evidence of exposure and toxicity, there has been little evidence of population-level declines of most nearshore fish and invertebrate populations. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this paradox. Two possibilities include a fishi...

Coastal wetlands are rapidly disappearing worldwide due to a variety of processes , including climate change and flood control. The rate of loss in the Mississippi River Delta is among the highest in the world and billions of dollars have been allocated to build and restore coastal wetlands. A key question guiding assessment is whether created coas...

Quantifying the multi‐dimensional nature of resource partitioning in‐situ represents a fundamental challenge for understanding how environmental conditions contribute to the co‐existence of sympatric species. For aquatic poikilotherms, the availability of temperatures at or near optima generally define the ranges and limitations of species biology...

Understanding how intraspecific variation in the use of prey resources impacts energy metabolism has strong implications for predicting long-term fitness such as reproductive success and survival and is critical for predicting population-to-community level responses to environmental change. Here we examine the energetic consequences of variable pre...

Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) exhibit ontogenetic and geographic variability in migratory patterns, yet the implications of movement on their resource use dynamics remain poorly understood. Here, we evaluate horseshoe crab resource use across ontogeny (instars 14-18 and adults), sex, seasons, and between two spatially distinct populations th...

The Deepwater Horizon disaster released 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite clear evidence of exposure and toxicity, there has been little evidence of population-level declines of most nearshore fish and invertebrate populations. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this paradox. Two possibilities include a fishi...

Nitrogen isotope (δ15N) analysis of bulk tissues and individual amino acids (AA) can be used to assess how consumers maintain nitrogen balance with broad implications for predicting individual fitness. For elasmobranchs, a ureotelic taxa thought to be constantly nitrogen limited, the isotopic effects associated with nitrogen-demanding events such a...

Coastal ecosystems are essential for absorbing, and bouncing back from, the impacts of climate change, yet accelerating climate change is causing anthropogenically-derived stressors in these ecosystems to grow. The effects of stressors are more difficult to foresee when they act simultaneously, however, predicting these effects is critical for unde...

Landscape theory for food web architecture (LTFWA) suggests that food webs are hierarchically organized with larger consumers coupling energy from different habitats that would otherwise be functionally isolated. Empirical tests of this theory remain rare and support differs among terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems. Saltmarshes and their a...

Bioindicator species are commonly used as proxies to help identify the ecological effects of oil spills and other stressors. However, the utility of taxa as bioindicators is dependent on understanding their trophic niche and life history characteristics, as these factors mediate their ecological responses. Seaside sparrows ( Ammospiza maritima) and...

Mercury (Hg) concentrations in fishes from the NW Atlantic Ocean pose concern due to the importance of this region to U.S. fisheries harvest. In this study, total Hg (THg) concentrations and nitrogen stable isotope (δ¹⁵N) values were quantified in muscle tissues sampled from Golden (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps) and Blueline (Caulolatilus microps)...

The notion that closely related species resemble each other in ecological niche space (i.e., phylogenetic dependence) has been a longstanding, contentious paradigm in evolutionary biology, the incidence of which is important for predicting the ecosystem-level effects of species loss. Despite being examined across a multitude of terrestrial taxa, ma...

1.Throughout their life history, many animals transition among heterogenous environments to facilitate behaviors such as reproduction, foraging, and predator avoidance. The dynamic environmental and biological conditions experienced by mobile species are integrated in the chemical composition of their tissues, providing retrospective insight into m...

Golden and Blueline Tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps and Caulolatilus microps) are keystone taxa in northwest (NW) Atlantic continental shelf-edge environments due to their biotic (trophic-mediated) and abiotic (ecosystem engineering) functional roles combined with high-value fisheries. Despite this importance, the ecological niche dynamics...

A multinational demersal longline survey was conducted on the Gulf of Mexico continental shelf over the years 2015 and 2016 to generate a Gulf-wide baseline of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations in demersal fishes. Tilefish (Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps) were sampled in all regions of the Gulf of Mexico for biometrics, bile, and...

The Great South Bay (GSB) is a shallow temperate lagoon in New York, USA, that has experienced a long-term decline in ecosystem maturity, defined as possessing increased complexity, stability, and resilience, dating back to the nineteenth century that is attributed to the loss of filter-feeding and upper trophic-level diversity and biomass. The obs...

Rationale: Determining the flow of energy from primary producers to higher trophic levels in complex systems remains an important task for ecologists. Biomarkers can be used to trace carbon or energy sources contributing to an organism's tissues. However, different biomarkers vary in their ability to trace carbon sources based on how faithfully th...

We evaluated whether existing assumptions regarding the trophic ecology of a poorly-studied predator guild, northwest (NW) Atlantic skates (family: Rajidae), were supported across broad geographic scales. Four hypotheses were tested using carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope values as metrics of foraging behavior: 1) species exhibit ont...

The Straits of Mackinac hydraulically link Lakes Michigan and Huron (Figure 1), and are wide and deep enough (average depth 20 m) to permit the same average water level in both water bodies, technically making them two lobes of a single large lake. The combined Michigan–Huron system forms the largest lake in the world by surface area and the fourth...

Evaluating tissue fractionation between mothers and their offspring is fundamental for informing our interpretation of stable isotope values in young individuals and can provide insights into the dynamics of maternal provisioning. The objectives of this study were to investigate the isotopic relationships between maternal reproductive (i.e., yolk,...

Growing concerns about the conservation of elasmobranchs have prompted a surge in research because scientific studies are needed that can support management actions. Sawfishes are among the most threatened fishes worldwide and epitomize the challenge of conserving widely distributed, large-bodied marine fishes. A comparative approach was used to pr...

Lipids affect stable isotope values generated for marine fishes, however these effects remain poorly described for many extant shark taxa, especially deep-sea species. Here, we report the effects of lipid extraction (LE) on δ13C, δ15N, and C:N values of seven deep-sea sharks, generate novel mathematical normalizations for δ13C based on the relation...

Modifications to riverine systems that alter freshwater inflow to downstream estuarine habitats have resulted in altered patterns of nekton distribution and abundance. To examine how nekton assemblages respond to variable hydrologic patterns, we used trawl and seine survey data to compare the seasonal trends (dry vs. wet season) expected of a natur...

Elasmobranch fin tissue has been sampled and archived for decades to support genetics research. However, these collections have the potential to provide additional information on the trophic ecology of and habitat use by elasmobranch species. The use of fin tissue is especially attractive considering the threatened status of many elasmobranchs and...

The availability of energy to higher trophic levels is largely dependent on available prey resources and any changes in this resource may have important consequences for species fitness, as well as the structure and function of the overall food web. Declining abundances of terrestrial arthropods observed following the DeepWater Horizon oil spill ha...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were quantified in liver tissues of bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) ranging in age from <4 wk to >3 yr. Summed values of PCBs (SPCBs) ranged from 310 ng/g to 22 070 ng/g (lipid wt) across age classes with SPCB concentrations for the youngest sharks in the present study (<4 wk; 5230 AE 2170 ng/g lipid wt) determine...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were quantified in liver tissues of bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) ranging in age from <4 wk to >3 yr. Summed values of PCBs (ΣPCBs) ranged from 310 ng/g to 22 070 ng/g (lipid wt) across age classes with ΣPCB concentrations for the youngest sharks in the present study (<4 wk; 5230 ± 2170 ng/g lipid wt) determined...

The application of stable isotopes to characterize the complexities of a species foraging behavior and trophic relationships is dependent on assumptions of δ(15)N diet-tissue discrimination factors (∆(15)N). As ∆(15)N values have been experimentally shown to vary amongst consumers, tissues and diet composition, resolving appropriate species-specifi...

Measures of trophic position (TP) are critical for understanding food web interactions and human-mediated ecosystem disturbance. Nitrogen stable isotopes (d 15 N) provide a powerful tool to estimate TP but are limited by a pragmatic assumption that isotope discrimination is constant (change in d 15 N between predator and prey, D 15 N = 3.4&), resul...

Given the known effect of lipid content on δ13C values and the potential effect of urea on δ15N values, examining the effects of lipid extraction, which can potentially extract both, is of particular importance for elasmobranch isotope ecology. Through analysing paired δ13C, total %C, δ15N, total %N and C:N values of non-lipid extracted (BULK) and...

Given the known effect of lipid content on δ13C values and the potential effect of urea on δ15N values, examining the effects of lipid extraction, which can potentially extract both, is of particular importance for elasmobranch isotope ecology. Through analysing paired δ13C, total %C, δ15N, total %N and C:N values of non-lipid extracted (BULK) and...

Characterizing dietary resources and species interactions in estuaries is challenging, particularly when considering the dynamic nature of these ecosystems, the ranges in body sizes of species, and the potential for trophic roles to vary with ontogeny.We examined the influence of season and location on relationships between body size and δ15N, δ13C...

Stable-isotope analysis (SIA) can act as a powerful ecological tracer with which to examine diet, trophic position and movement, as well as more complex questions pertaining to community dynamics and feeding strategies or behaviour among aquatic organisms. With major advances in the understanding of the methodological approaches and assumptions of...

Using photo-identification data, bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) populations can be differentiated based on their use of particular estuaries or coastal habitats. Questions remain, however, about the validity of such fine-scale population partitioning and whether the resulting assemblages utilize unique forage bases. To address the issue of...

Stable isotopes of neonatal vertebrates reflect those of their mother's diet and foraging location. Evaluating feeding strategies and habitat use of neonates is consequently complicated by the maternal isotopic signal and its subsequent elimination with growth. Thus, methods that measure the loss of the maternal signal, i.e. when the isotopic signa...

Background/Question/Methods Anthropogenic alteration of freshwater flows to estuarine systems is of particular importance, as estuaries serve as nursery areas for many top predators. In this study, we analyzed natural abundances of stable-carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotopes to assess the response of a top predator, the bull shark (Carcharhinus le...

Much of North America’s tidal marsh habitat has been significantly altered by both natural and man-made processes. Thus, there is a need to understand the trophic ecology of organisms endemic to these ecosystems. We applied carbon (δ 13C) and nitrogen (δ 15N) stable isotope analysis, along with isotope mixing models, to egg yolk, liver, and muscle...

Stable nitrogen (delta(15)N) and carbon (delta(13)C) isotopes of Atlantic sharpnose shark Rhizoprionodon terraenovae embryos and mothers were analysed. Embryos were generally enriched in (15)N in all studied tissue relative to their mothers' tissue, with mean differences between mother and embryo delta(15)N (i.e. Deltadelta(15)N) being 1.4 per thou...