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1. Despite implications for top‐down and bottom‐up control and the stability of food webs, understanding the links between consumers and their diets remains difficult, particularly in remote tropical locations where food resources are usually abundant and variable and seasonal hydrology produces alternating patterns of connectivity and isolation.

2. We used a large scale survey of freshwater biota from 67 sites in three catchments (Daly River, Northern Territory; Fitzroy River, Western Australia; and the Mitchell River, Queensland) in Australia’s wet–dry tropics and analysed stable isotopes of carbon (δ¹³C) to search for broad patterns in resource use by consumers in conjunction with known and measured indices of connectivity, the duration of floodplain inundation, and dietary choices (i.e. stomach contents of fish).

3. Regression analysis of biofilm δ¹³C against consumer δ¹³C, as an indicator of reliance on …