Studying Animal Diets In Situ Using Portable Stable Isotope Analyzers

I assessed the usefulness of a portable stable isotope analyzer for assigning animals to food chains of tropical ecosystems. Based on the stable carbon isotope ratio of the animals' breath (delta(13)C(breath)), it was possible to distinguish between the isotopically distinct food chains of fruit-eating bats and blood-eating vampire bats. Portable instruments for the analysis of delta(13)C(breath) may improve our ability to quantify animal diets, because they are accurate and cheap, and most importantly they can be used in situ.