Using near‐infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) to estimate carbon and nitrogen stable isotope composition in animal tissues

Abstract Stable isotopes analysis (SIA) of carbon and nitrogen provides valuable information about trophic interactions animal feeding habits. We used near‐infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) support vector machines (SVM) to develop a model for screening isotopic ratios ( δ 13 C 15 N) in samples from living animals. applied this method on dried blood birds previously analyzed N test whether NIRS can be accurately estimate ratios. Our results show prediction accuracy R 2 > 0.65, RMSEP < 0.28) both N, representing 12% the measurement range study. study suggests that provide time‐ cost‐efficient evaluate stable isotope when substantial differences or are expected, such as discriminating among different levels diet.