Isotope Notation and Measurement

Abstract

Isotopes are forms of an element that differ in the number of neutrons. Isotopes function as natural dyes or colors, generally tracking the circulation of elements. Isotopes trace ecological connections at many levels, from individual microbes to whole landscapes. Isotope colors mix when source materials combine, and in a cyclic process that ecologists can appreciate, the process of isotope fractionation takes the mixed material and regenerates the sources by splitting or fractionating the mixtures. Elements and their isotopes circulate in the biosphere at large, but also in all smaller ecological plant, animal, or soil systems. Chapter 3 reviews this circulation for each of the HCNOS elements, then gives four short reviews that may stimulate you to think about how you could use isotopes in your own ecological research.