Hi.

I'm a PhD student in the Zoology Department at Cambridge researching
energy expenditure in bees. I use doubly-labelled water to calculate
energy turnover and thus generate microlitre volumes (typically in 5
microlitre aliquots) of labelled body water. I have a small vacuum rig for
freeze drying the bees but it's not really adequate to use for further
reduction of the DLW samples as preparation for IRMS analysis.

Does anyone know of a laboratory that might be able to analyse my
samples? They total about 100 bees (about 400 aliquots of DLW) and the
isotope concentration is likely to be high (initial concentrations
estimated to range from about 300 - 700 ppm (some samples) and
others less (turned over). There are also some samples with a very high
concentration (10% APE with various amounts of fractionation).
I was hoping that they could be analysed using continous-flow pyrolysis
IRMS as this would dispense with the need for separate reduction and hopefully
cope with the small volumes. Does anyone out there do this? Or know of a
good alternative that would suit my needs?

Any help much appreciated.

Cheers,
Dom Adair.

Insect Flight Group,
Department of Zoology,
Downing Street,
Cambridge CB2 3EJ
Tel. 01223 334478