Deep-sea food-web structure at South Sandwich Islands (Southern Ocean): net primary production as a main driver for interannual changes

Food-webs are a major component of ecosystems and determinant for their functioning and structure. The food chain length (FCL) is a key feature of food-webs and it is crucial for the resistance of the community to external stressors. The Southern Ocean (SO) food-web is known for being short and dominated by an Antarctic krill Euphausia superba surplus, though recent studies proved the existence of different pathways. However, previous studies focused on the pelagic realm, with the deep-sea and benthopelagic coupling remaining poorly understood. Using stable isotopes of δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N in muscle from individuals collected during toothfish fishing seasons 2020, 2021 and 2022, we 1) studied the bathyal food-web structure at South Sandwich Islands; 2) evaluated the interannual variability of FCL; and 3) tested which FCL hypothesis better explains the variability at the SO deep-sea. Our results show that this food-web is composed of five trophic levels with both Patagonian Dissostichus eleginoides and Antarctic Dissostichus mawsoni toothfish as top predators. The 4th and 5th trophic levels are mostly composed of fish, while in the 3rd trophic level we mainly found cephalopods and crustaceans. The benthopelagic coupling occurs at different trophic levels, though mostly between the 3rd and 4th trophic level. The FCL varied between years, being in 2022 0.30 trophic levels shorter than in 2020. Our results suggest that food-webs including a benthic component are longer than pelagic and coastal SO food-webs. The FCL is positively related with net primary productivity, supporting that the productivity hypothesis explains the variability in FCL in SO bathyal food-webs in slope and seamount areas. With climate change, the productivity in the SO is expected to increase which will increase the length of the food-web. This change will affect the structure of the ecosystem, increasing assimilation losses, exposure to biomagnifying contaminants and changing nutrient cycles.