Trophic Enrichment Factors for Blood Serum in the European Badger (Meles Meles)

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2013 Jan 10

PMID 23300863

Citations 1

Authors

David J Kelly

Andrew Robertson

Denise Murphy

Tara Fitzsimons

Eamon Costello

Eamonn Gormley

Leigh A L Corner

Nicola M Marples

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Ecologists undertaking stable isotopic analyses of animal diets require trophic enrichment factors (TEFs) for the specific animal tissues that they are studying. Such basic data are available for a small number of species, so values from trophically or phylogenetically similar species are often substituted for missing values. By feeding a controlled diet to captive European badgers (Meles meles) we determined TEFs for carbon and nitrogen in blood serum. TEFs for nitrogen and carbon in blood serum were +3.0 ± 0.4‰ and +0.4 ± 0.1‰ respectively. The TEFs for serum in badgers are notably different from those published for the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). There is currently no data for TEFs in the serum of other mustelid species. Our data show that species sharing similar niches (red fox) do not provide adequate proxy values for TEFs of badgers. Our findings emphasise the importance of having species-specific data when undertaking trophic studies using stable isotope analysis.

Citing Articles

Trophic discrimination factors of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in hair of corn fed wild boar.

Hola M, Jezek M, Kusta T, Kosatova M PLoS One. 2015; 10(4):e0125042.

PMID: 25915400 PMC: 4411150. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125042.

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