The use of fatty acid lipids in freshwater ecological research

Fatty acids (FA) are a class of lipids that act in essential physiological functions in organisms and are transferred via trophic interactions in food webs. The literature regarding the roles of FA has a long history in marine systems, but is yet to receive the same attention in freshwater systems. In this review we discuss the scientific literature that uses FA in freshwater ecology but limited to experimental studies. We identified 178 papers that have used FA to either examine food webs, anthropogenic disturbance, subsides between ecosystems, seasonal or spatial variation and as biomarkers in freshwater ecosystems. The majority of research concerned the use of FA for examining food web structures and has been subject to several recent reviews so is not covered here. We examined the remaining research topics and identified six areas where FA could be used to develop new knowledge in freshwater ecology. Our review assists natural resource management by highlighting consistencies among studies but also identifies where research is inconclusive and requires further work to establish ecological generalisations.