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Specialization on Spartina alterniflora by a detritivorous amphipod John D. Parker,* Mark E. Hay, and Joseph P. Montoya. Aquatic Chemical Ecology Group, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA; e-mail for first author gte782w@. The ecology and evolution of herbivore diet choice has been well studied. When herbivory is low, however, most plant production is channeled through detrital pathways. Despite this, we know little about detritivore diet choice, which ultimately determines the pathways and thus the fate of plant production. Here we describe a common amphipod (Gammarus palustris) that specializes on standing dead Spartina alterniflora leaves. This amphipod feeds preferentially and reaches highest fitness (survival, growth and sexual maturity) on diets of dead Spartina relative to other marsh plants, even though dead Spartina is nutritionally poor. Amphipods fed readily on some artificially softened plant taxa, suggesting that plant toughness is an important feeding cue. Plant secondary chemistry may influence feeding on other plants (crude extract assays are incomplete at press time). Protection from killifish predation may spur specialization on this nutritionally poor host-plant. To corroborate our laboratory feeding assays and infer food web structure, we also measured stable isotopic content (15N and 13C) of several common marsh organisms. Field amphipods had isotopic ratios similar to laboratory amphipods reared on dead Spartina; both were distinct from amphipods reared on other plants or sediment. Amphipods reared on dead Spartina had much lighter 13C ratios than predicted by standard trophic fractionation. Marsh killifishes had isotopic ratios suggesting predation on G. palustris. Estimates of amphipod density and feeding rates suggest that this population of G. palustris could ingest up to 20% of the net primary production of Spartina. Thus these cryptic, specialist detritivores might transfer a significant portion of plant production i