Tracing water sources of terrestrial animal populations with stable isotopes: laboratory tests with crickets and spiders.

ABSTRACT: Fluxes of carbon, nitrogen, and water between ecosystem components and organisms have great impacts across levels of biological organization. Although much progress has been made in tracing carbon and nitrogen, difficulty remains in tracing water sources from the ecosystem to animals and among animals (the "water web"). Naturally occurring, non-radioactive isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in water provide a potential method for tracing water sources. However, using this approach for terrestrial animals is complicated by a change in water isotopes within the body due to differences in activity of heavy and light isotopes during cuticular and transpiratory water losses. Here we present a technique to use stable water isotopes to estimate the mean mix of water sources in a population by sampli

SUBMITTER: McCluney KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3013119 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature