The influence of diet on the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in animals was investigated by analyzing animals grown in the laboratory on diets of constant nitrogen isotopic composition. 
The isotopic composition of the nitrogen in an animal reflects the nitrogen isotopic composition of its diet. The δ^(15)N values of the whole bodies of animals are usually more positive than those of their diets. Different individuals of a species raised on the same diet can have significantly different δ^(15)N values. The variability of the relationship between the δ^(15)N values of animals and their diets is greater for different species raised on the same diet than for the same species raised on different diets. Different tissues of mice are also enriched in ^(15)N relative to the diet, with the difference between the δ^(15)N values of a tissue and the diet depending on both the kind of tissue and the diet involved. The δ^(15)N values of collagen and chitin, biochemical components that are often preserved in fossil animal remains, are also related to the δ^(15)N value of the diet. 
The dependence of the δ^(15)N values of whole animals and their tissues and biochemical components on the δ^(15)N value of diet indicates that the isotopic composition of animal nitrogen can be used to obtain information about an animal's diet if its potential food sources had different δ^(15)N values. The nitrogen isotopic method of dietary analysis probably can be used to estimate the relative use of legumes vs non-legumes or of aquatic vs terrestrial organisms as food sources for extant and fossil animals. However, the method probably will not be applicable in those modern ecosystems in which the use of chemical fertilizers has influenced the distribution of nitrogen isotopes in food sources. 
The isotopic method of dietary analysis was used to reconstruct changes in the diet of the human population that occupied the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico over a 7000 yr span. Variations in the δ^(15)C and δ^(15)N values of bone collagen suggest that C_4 and/or CAM plants (presumably mostly corn) and legumes (presumably mostly beans) were introduced into the diet much earlier than suggested by conventional archaeological analysis.

Influence of Diet On the Distribtion of Nitrogen Isotopes in Animals

Preservation of organic matter and alteration of its carbon and nitrogen isotope composition during simulated and in situ early sedimentary diagenesis

The nitrogen-isotope record preserved in Southern Ocean sediments, along with several geochemical tracers for the settling fluxes of biogenic matter, reveals patterns of past nutrient supply to phytoplankton and surface-water stratification in this oceanic region. Areal averaging of these spatial patterns indicates that reduction of the CO2 ‘leak’ from ocean to atmosphere by increased surface-water stratification south of the Polar Front made a greater contribution to the lowering of atmospheric CO2 concentration during the Last Glacial Maximum than did the increased export of organic carbon from surface to deep waters occurring further north.

Contribution of Southern Ocean surface-water stratification to low atmospheric CO 2 concentrations during the last glacial period

Productivity of the ocean: Present and past

Early diagenesis of organic matter from sediments of the eastern subtropical Atlantic: evidence from stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes

Stable nitrogen isotope ratios in sinking particles and bulk sediments have been used to document changes in relative nitrate utilization in surface waters of the subtropical southeast Atlantic. Incubation experiments demonstrated clear isotopic increases in decomposing particulate matter due to the removal of 15N in the form of NH4 +. In spite of the diagenetic offset, δ15N values in sinking particles at the Walvis Ridge and in surface sediments in the Angola and Cape Basins reflect changes in upwelled nitrate concentrations in surface water and the relative depletion of this nutrient. Two sediment cores from the Angola Basin provide a δ15N record of nitrate utilization for the past 300 kyr that indicates that nutrient availability and productivity in this region are primarily controlled by changes in trade wind-driven upwelling intensity and the northward advection of cold, nutrient-rich water. Additionally, nitrate was less depleted and productivity was higher in glacial periods than during interglacials.

Reconstruction of Surface Ocean Nitrate Utilization Using Stable Nitrogen Isotopes in Sinking Particles and Sediments

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Reconstruction of Surface Ocean Nitrate Utilization Using Stable Nitrogen Isotopes in Sinking Particles and Sediments