Effects of nutritional restriction on nitrogen and carbon stable isotopes in growing seabirds

When using stable isotopes as dietary tracers it is essential to consider effects of nutritional state on isotopic fractionation. While starvation is known to induce enrichment of N-15 in body tissues, effects of moderate food restriction on isotope signatures have rarely been tested. We conducted two experiments to investigate effects of a 50-55% reduction in food intake on delta N-15 and delta C-13 values in blood cells and whole blood of tufted puffin chicks, a species that exhibits a variety of adaptive responses to nutritional deficits. We found that blood from puffin chicks fed ad libitum became enriched in N-15 and C-13 compared to food-restricted chicks. Our results show that N-15 enrichment is not always associated with food deprivation and argue effects of growth on diet-tissue fractionation of nitrogen stable isotopes (Delta N-15) need to be considered in stable isotope studies. The decrease in delta C-13 of whole blood and blood cells in restricted birds is likely due to incorporation of carbon from C-13-depleted lipids into proteins. Effects of nutritional restriction on delta N-15 and delta C-13 values were relatively small in both experiments (delta N-15: 0.77 and 0.41 parts per thousand, delta C-13: 0.20 and 0.25 parts per thousand) compared to effects of ecological processes, indicating physiological effects do not preclude the use of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in studies of seabird ecology. Nevertheless, our results demonstrate that physiological processes affect nitrogen and carbon stable isotopes in growing birds and we caution isotope ecologists to consider these effects to avoid drawing spurious conclusions.