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Stable Isotope Sourcing Using Sampling
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA
Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora, USA
- 1 Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
- 2 Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA
- 3 Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA
- 4 Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora, USA
Open Journal of Ecology·Volume 04 (2014)·Pages 289–298·Published 23 May 2014·DOI10.4236/oje.2014.46027
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Abstract
Stable isotope mixing models are used to estimate proportional contributions of sources to a mixture, such as in the analysis of animal diets, plant nutrient use, geochemistry, pollution, and forensics. We describe an algorithm implemented as SISUS software for providing a user-specified number of probabilistic exact solutions derived quickly from the extended mixing model. Our method outperforms IsoSource [1] , a deterministic algorithm for providing approximate solutions to represent the solution polytope. Our method is an approximate Bayesian large sample procedure. SISUS software is freely available at StatAcumen.com/sisus and as an R package at cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sisus.
KeywordsSISUSIsoSourceMixing ModelAnimal EcologyMarkov Chain Monte Carlo
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