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Tissue-Diet Discrimination Factors And Turnover Of Stable Carbon And Nitrogen Isotopes In White-Footed Mice (Peromyscus Leucopus), Rachel L. Demots, James M. Novak, Karen F. Gaines, Aaron J. Gregor, Christopher S. Romanek, Daniel A. Soluk

Karen F. Gaines

Stable isotope analysis has become an increasingly valuable tool in investigating animal ecology. Here we document the turnover rates for carbon in the liver, muscle, and whole blood tissue, as well as the tissue-diet discrimination values for carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the liver, whole blood, muscle, and hair, of the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus (Rafinesque, 1818)). A 168-day diet-switching experiment was conducted with a laboratory population of white-footed mice. The δ13C values for all tissues deviated less than 1‰ from those of the diet except for whole blood, which had a slightly higher tissue-diet discrimination factor of 1.8‰. All …