Plant isoscapes

The stable isotopic composition of plants has been studied for decades, yielding important insights into plant physiology, water use, mineral nutrition, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, paleoenvironmental conditions and more.

The study of spatial variation in plant stable isotope ratios has a comparatively shorter history, and has largely centered around the isotopic exchanges between atmospheric gases and leaf water. This may be due in part to the gap between the domains of those initially interested in this (typically related to atmospheric general circulation modeling) and the interests of many in diverse fields who could benefit from these kinds of efforts.

Methods to model the landscape-scale spatial variation in plant stable isotopes in Geographic Information Systems have been developed with the hope that this method would be more accessible to ecologists and others interested in the topic, but who are not trained as atmospheric modelers.

We provide here models, map products, and links to the spatial data layers that serve as inputs in order to allow wider use of spatial isotopic variation and research into all aspects of isoscapes. To date the focus has been primarily on hydrogen and oxygen isotopes, but we hope to add carbon and nitrogen isoscapes products also.

The models themselves (Python scripts for ArcGIS) are available on the downloads page, as are images and GIS grids for model outputs.

Please note that we are working on a major new addition to isoscapes cyberinfrastructure with funding from the National Science Foundation. The project is called "IsoMAP" and plant modeling capacity is expected to be available in the next year.