Beyond carbon and nitrogen: guidelines for estimating three-dimensional isotopic niche space.

ABSTRACT: Isotopic niche has typically been characterized through carbon and nitrogen ratios and most modeling approaches are limited to two dimensions. Yet, other stable isotopes can provide additional power to resolve questions associated with foraging, migration, dispersal and variations in resource use. The ellipse niche model was recently generalized to n-dimensions. We present an analogous methodology which incorporates variation across three stable dimensions to estimate the significant features of a population's isotopic niche space including: 1) niche volume (referred to as standard ellipsoid volume, SEV), 2) relative centroid location (CL), 3) shape and 4) area of overlap between multiple ellipsoids and 5) distance between two CLs. We conducted a simulation study showing the accuracy and p

SUBMITTER: Rossman S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4834325 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature