Hair, isotopic composition

The isotopic composition of carbon in the proteins, which are one of the main components of animal tissues, reflects the nature of the food resources in the diet of the animals. Determining the relative abundance of the stable isotopes of carbon in the proteins of bones or hair, for example, can facilitate understanding of the effects that different types of plants or animal food resources had on ancient diets (Katzenberg 2000 Burton 1996). 

Macko, S., G. Lubec, M. Te.schler-Nicola. V. Ruscvich. and M. Engel. 1999. The Ice Man s diet as reflected by the stable nitrogen and carbon isotopic composition of his hair. The FASEB Journal 13 559-562. 

A study of hair samples collected from 22 Balkan residents showed that the concentration of most of the studied elements (Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Sr, and Cd) was in line with worldwide reported values, but the uranium concentration showed an exceptionally wide range of 0.9-449 ng g (Zunic et al. 2012). The isotopic composition of uranium showed a natural ratio, although the samples were collected in... 

Laffont, L., Sonke, J.E., Maurice, L., Hintelmann, H., Pouilly, M., Bacarreza, Y.S., Perez, T., and Behra, P. (2009) Mercury isotopic compositions of fish and human hair in the Bolivian Amazon. Environ. Sci. Technol, 43, 8985-8990. 

Xiao, Yingkai., Sun, Dapeng., Wang, Yunhui., Qi, Hairing., and Jin, Lin. (1992) Boron isotopic compositions of... 

The carbon isotope composition of food ingested by animals is generally reflected in the metabolized products. For example, it is possible to differentiate between animals that have primarily C3 versus C4 diets based on the measurement of the d C value of hair, finger nails, bone collagen, etc. This information is useful in food web studies to determine primary nutrient sources and to discover who is the prey and who the hunter. Nitrogen isotopes are... 

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