Corrigendum: Food Sources Drive Temporal Variation in Elemental Stoichiometry of Benthic Consumers

The paper published in Limnology and Oceanography 67: 784-799 (2022) contains a calculation error. This error concerns the result and discussion sections “Stoichiometric variation in the benthic community”. The benthic community biomass and consequently the community C, N and P content were miscalculated. The corrected benthic community C, N and P content is approximately three times higher than the values presented in the original paper. However, the correction in biomass had no major effect on the community C: N: P ratios. Statistical analysis was performed (two-way PERMANOVA) again for the community stoichiometry, but the results did not change. Importantly, corrections of the community biomass did not affect the main results or the conclusion of the paper. The corrected version of Table 3, Fig. 7 and Supplementary Table 7 are presented below. These corrections change the following: Methods: Stoichiometric variation in the benthic community. p. 787: the text should read “The model was based on Euclidean distances, calculated on total C, N, and P content g m-2 and log10(x + 1) transformed C: N: P data (Anderson et al. 2008)”. Results: Stoichiometric variation in the benthic community. p. 791: the corrected values for the benthic community are “At the sheltered site IH4, the C, N, and P content of the benthic community was highest in August and lowest in October (Table 3, Fig. 7). In contrast, at the exposed site XXVI, the community tissue C and N content was highest in January and lowest in May and March, while P showed little variation (Table 3). The maximum measured content was 37.8 g C m−2, 4.3 g N m−2 and 0.4 g P m−2 when accounting for both organic and inorganic carbon bound to community biomass (i.e., bivalves with shell; Table 3)". p. 791: “The elemental content of the community followed the variation of the total biomass and was strongly linked to the population structure of the clam L. balthica, that contributed with ca. 90 % to the total biomass, and ca. 80 % to the tissue biomass (except in October at IH4, Fig. 7)”. p. 791: the corrected elemental ratios are “on both sites the C: N ratios were highest in May (sheltered IH4 7.2, exposed XXVI 7.3), whereas C: P (IH4 230.4, XXVI 236.4) and N: P (IH4 34.9, XXVI 33.6) ratios peaked in August (Table 3). We measured the lowest C: N (5.0), C: P (110.4) and N: P (20.6) during winter (Table 3)”. p. 791: "The yearly average C: N, C: P and N: P ratios of the benthic fauna were 6, 163 and 27 at the sheltered site (IH4), and 6, 152, and 24 at the more exposed site (XXVI)." Discussion: Stoichiometric variation in the benthic community. p. 795: “On a yearly average, the studied soft-sediment benthic communities stored 25 390 kg C km-2, 2 720 kg N km-2 and 230 kg P km-2 (bivalve shells included). If excluding bivalve shells, the content is lower, measuring 10 690 kg C km-2, 2 010 kg N km-2 and 180 kg P km-2. At its maximum, the magnitude of the pool reached up to 13 600 kg C km-2, 2900 kg N km-2, and 300 kg P km-2 (shells excluded) at the exposed site XXVI. In comparison, the estimated magnitude for the average organic benthic faunal carbon and nutrient pool in the entire Gulf of Finland is 5333 kg C km-2, 733 kg N km-2 and 60 kg P km-2 (Carman and Cederwall 2001). We measured higher values from the aphotic coastal benthic communities than previously estimated (Carman and Cederwall 2001; Scheffold and Hense 2020).” p. 795: “L. balthica, which contributed with ca. 90% (shells included)”. p. 796: “We measured that the yearly average C: N, C: P and N: P ratios of the Baltic benthic fauna were 6, 163 and 27 (sheltered IH4) or 6, 152 and 24 (exposed site XXVI)”. p. 796: “whereas the corresponding values we measured for the benthic consumers in beginning of May were 156: 22: 1 (sheltered) and 156: 21: 1 (exposed)”. In addition, the unit for sediment Chl-a and pheopigments should be μg g−1 instead of mg g−1 as presented in the main text and Supplementary Table 1. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.