Stable Isotope Analysis
Stable isotopes have become an important tool for many ecological studies, including estimating energy flow and trophic positions in aquatic food webs, tracing pollution, assessing the impacts of aquaculture on the surrounding environment, and aiding in the tracking of wide-ranging consumers, and can be a critical component in assessing ecological risk.
More broadly across scientific disciplines, isotopic analyses can also be used to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions, to investigate historical human diets, food authentication, and a variety of other physical, geological, palaeontological, and chemical processes.
Andrew Mackey (BioGeo founder) completed his Ph.D. on the use of stable isotopes to understand coastal food webs, an award-winning piece of research that received the 2015 Faculty Research Medal (Faculty of Health, Engineering, and Science) at Edith Cowan University. The models he developed to predict isotopic values at the base of food webs are being used by ecologists to remove a large proportion of unexplained variation to help answer important questions in trophic ecology.
Some examples of the services we can offer using stable isotope analyses:
Tracing sources, extent, and the spread of pollution and environmental change
Assessing the impacts of aquaculture on surrounding ecosystems
Reconstructing food webs, both past, and present
Tracking animal movement and migration patterns
Quantifying mining contamination levels (Pb isotopes)
To discuss our capabilities and your requirements, contact us at info@biogeo.com.au