Isotopic composition, animal

Records of past environmental change are preserved in a broad range of Earth materials. Past environments are inferred from "proxy" records, meaning measurements of physical and chemical parameters of marine and terrestrial sediment, polar ice, and other materials that were in some way influenced by their environment during accumulation. Examples of proxy records are the distribution of glacial deposits, the isotopic composition of terrestrial and marine sediments and ice, the abundance and species composition of plant and animal fossils, and the width of tree rings. 

Schoeninger, M.J. and DeNiro, M.J. 1984 Nitrogen and carbon isotopic composition of bone collagen from marine and terrestrial animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 48 625-639. 

Suggestions that phosphatic minerals in mammals could be used, however, revived the interest in climate reconstruction in continental interiors. Aquatic, cold-blooded animals like fish have body temperatures and body water oxygen isotopic compositions that are directly dependent on the water in which they live. For these animals, a commonly used equation describes the relationships among temperature, water oxygen isotopic composition and phosphate oxygen isotopic composition as (Longinelli and Nuti 1973 verified by Kolodny et al. 1983, among others) ... 

Body water oxygen isotopic composition in mammals is a function of the oxygen mass balance of the specific animal. In general, it can be related to three major oxygen sources air oxygen, drinking water, and food (both the... 

We can now appreciate that this explanation is incorrect, because the energy food for an animal is all of its diet and not just carbohydrates and lipids. Therefore we should not expect any selective offset due to the presence of lipids in the flesh of herbivores. Indeed, in general, the average 5 Cof total consumable herbivore tissues (flesh, lipids, etc.) is very close to that of the diet, and we might not expect any difference in the isotopic composition of the collagen or carbonate of a consumer of pure Cj plants as opposed to a consumer of the flesh of Cs-eating herbivores. We must seek elsewhere for the cause of the trophic level effect on A,p.co-... 

Schoeninger, M.J. and DeNiro, M.J. 1984 Nitrogen and carbon isotopic composition of bone collagen from marine and terrestrial animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 48 625-639. Schuette, S. A., Hegsted, M., Zemel, B. and Linkswiler, H.M. 1981 Renal acid, urinary cyclic AMP, and hydroxyproline excretion as affected by level of protein, sulfur amino acids and phosphorus intake. Journal of Nutrition 111 2106-2116. 

Calcium carbonate is also the main constituent of the shells of sea animals, which make their shells from elements acquired from the surrounding waters. Now, the degree of fractionation of the oxygen isotopes as well as the formation of mineral carbonates and of animal shells in sea waters are determined on the basis of the temperature-dependent fractionation of the isotopes of oxygen the oxygen isotope composition of these materials reflects, therefore, the temperature at the time of their formation. Thus determining the isotope ratio between the stable isotopes of oxygen... 

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). 

Strontium incorporated into the teeth, for example, becomes immobilized after formation of the teeth. The relative amounts of the isotopes of strontium in the teeth is, therefore, related to the average strontium isotope composition that an animal ingested in food or water while growing. Thus teeth retain a kind of record of both early exposure to the isotopes of strontium in the water and food ingested during their growing, early life. In the... 

The bulk hydrogen isotopic composition of amino acids has been shown to depend on animal trophic level (Birchall et al. 2005). Furthermore, compound-specific hydrogen isotopic analyses of amino acids may help elucidate the mechanism behind this enrichment, by determining the differences in 8D value between essential and non-essential amino acids, and may also provide a further palaeodietary indicator (e.g. Corr et al. 2005). However, amino acids are highly functional, with both amino and carboxyl extremely... 

Fischer G, Wiencke C (1992) Stable carbon isotope composition, depth distribution and fate of macroalgae from the Antarctic Peninsula region. Polar Biol 12 341-348 Foster MS (1992) How important is grazing to seaweed evolution and assemblage structure in the north-east Pacific In John DM, Hawkins SJ, Price JH (eds) Plant-animal interactions in the marine benthos. Clarendon, Oxford, pp 61-85... 

Fig. 9.10 Isotope compositions of plants and of the animals which feed on them (After DeNiro, M. J. Am. Sci. 75, 182 (1987))...

Mekhtiyeva VL, Pankina GR, Gavrilov EY (1976) Distribution and isotopic composition of forms of sulfur in water animals and plants. Geochem Int 13 82 Melander L (1960) Isotope effects on reaction rates. Ronald, New York... 

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