10.6084/m9.figshare.3843234.v1 Noboru Katayama Noboru Katayama Kobayashi Makoto Kobayashi Makoto Osamu Kishida Osamu Kishida Electronic supplementary materials from An aquatic vertebrate can use amino acids from environmental water The Royal Society 2016 aquatic animal dissolved organic nitrogen uptake nutrient flow growth rate Hynobius retardatus stable isotope 2016-09-21 06:05:52 Journal contribution https://rs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Electronic_supplementary_materials_from_An_aquatic_vertebrate_can_use_amino_acids_from_environmental_water/3843234 Conventional food-web theory assumes that nutrients from dissolved organic matter are transferred to aquatic vertebrates via long nutrient pathways involving multiple eukaryotic species as intermediary nutrient transporters. Here, using larvae of the salamander <i>Hynobius retardatus</i> as a model system, we provide experimental evidence of a shortcut nutrient pathway by showing that <i>H. retardatus</i> larvae can use dissolved amino acids for their growth without eukaryotic mediation. First, to explore which amino acids can promote larval growth, we kept individual salamander larvae in one of eight different high-concentration amino acid solutions, or in control water from which all other eukaryotic organisms had been removed. We thus identified five amino acids (lysine, threonine, serine, phenylalanine and tyrosine) as having the potential to promote larval growth. Next, using <sup>15</sup>N-labelled amino acid solutions, we demonstrated that nitrogen from dissolved amino acids was found in larval tissues. These results suggest that salamander larvae can take up dissolved amino acids from environmental water to use as an energy source or a growth-promoting factor. Thus, aquatic vertebrates as well as aquatic invertebrates may be able to use dissolved organic matter as a nutrient source.