The Stable Isotope Laboratory (SIL) is hosted by the Mammal Research Institute (MRI) and is located in the Botany Building on the Main Campus. The laboratory was established in 2013 when the facility was transferred from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Thereafter, the preparation laboratory was set up and the stable isotope ratio mass spectrometers were re-commissioned and calibrated. The first official isotope analyses were carried out at the beginning of 2014 and since then we have provided training, supervision and analytical services to over 150 post-graduate students and researchers from various University of Pretoria departments, centres and units, as well as more than 15 tertiary education facilities across South Africa. This has resulted in over 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles. We actively encourage students from other tertiary institutions to visit our facility to gain first-hand experience in stable isotope analysis (SIA) and its myriad of applications.

The laboratory is currently managed by Dr Grant Hall, who has more than 15 years’ experience with SIA and the wide range of uses and applications of the methodology. Dr Hall is assisted by, and collaborates extensively with, Prof. Stephan Woodborne from (iThemba Labs, Johannesburg), who is seconded to the university. This collaboration has resulted in several long-term multidisciplinary research programmes, for example the River Health Programme and Isotope Dendroclimatology in southern Africa. The first focuses on the assessment and monitoring of southern African rivers using stable isotopes in order to protect basic ecological functioning, while the second analyses growth rings in trees to provide proxy past climatic data in southern Africa, which is important for testing and verification of climate models, monitoring the effects of climate change across southern Africa and the reconstruction of past environments.

The SIL has continued to collaborate and supply analytical services to a number of external clients involved in food and beverage quality control. The focus is the use of stable isotope analysis (SIA) to monitor and detect adulteration of alcohol and honey based products in southern Africa. We are continually expanding the number of collaborators and researchers to develop suitable methods/protocols for the use of SIA and other techniques (e.g. DNA barcoding) as forensic tools and to provide additional sources of proxy evidence to assist in curbing the illegal wildlife and indigenous plant trade.

We have many exciting multi-disciplinary research collaborations within the University of Pretoria, interacting strongly with the Departments of Zoology and Entomology, Geology, Archaeology and Anthropology, the Endocrine Research Laboratory, MRI Whale Unit, Marion Island Marine Mammal Programme, the Forensic Toxicology Laboratory and the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics. We also continue to work with external institutions such as the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, the SANBI/National Zoological Gardens and the Endangered Wildlife Trust. Through a diverse network of disciplines and research organisations we demonstrate that SIA provides a powerful and robust research tool that yields stand-alone data as well as complimenting other research methods.