1. What makes some species successful invaders while others fail, and why some invaders have major impacts in invaded ecosystems are pivotal questions that are attracting major research effort. The increasing availability of high resolution, georeferenced stable isotope landscapes (‘isoscapes’), coupled with the commercialization of stable isotope‐enriched tracer molecules and the development of new analytical approaches, is facilitating novel applications of stable isotope techniques in ecology. We can now address ecological questions that were previously intractable.
2. We review and discuss how stable isotope analysis (SIA) can complement fundamental research themes in the study of biological invasions, especially in answering questions relating to the physiological and ecological mechanisms underlying invasion processes and invader impacts.
3. SIA was first used for simply describing the diet of invaders but, more recently, SIA‐informed metrics of population and community trophic structure have been advanced. These approaches now permit the comparison of diets across space and time and provide quantitative tools to compare food webs across different stages of invasion.
4. SIA has also been pivotal in quantifying competition for resources between native and non‐native species (e.g. competition for food, water, or nutrient use). Specific questions related to modes of dispersal (e.g. origin and distance/direction travelled) and mechanisms of establishment can also be addressed using SIA in diverse taxa.
5. An overarching goal is to highlight examples of recent studies that have used SIA in key areas of invasion ecology and use these to synthesize testable predictions where SIA could be applied to future studies. We conclude by highlighting several paths forward and describing how unresolved challenges in quantifying the rates, impacts, and mechanisms underlying invasions could potentially benefit from the use of SIA.

中文翻译：

---

使用稳定同位素分析回答入侵生态学中的基本问题：进展与前景

1. 是什么使某些物种成功地入侵了而其他物种却失败了，以及为什么某些入侵者在被入侵的生态系统中产生了重大影响，这是吸引着大量研究工作的关键性问题。高分辨率，地理参考的稳定同位素景观（'isoscapes'）的可用性不断提高，再加上富含稳定同位素的示踪剂分子的商业化以及新分析方法的发展，正在推动稳定同位素技术在生态学领域的新应用。现在，我们可以解决以前难以解决的生态问题。
2. 我们回顾并讨论稳定同位素分析（SIA）如何在生物学入侵研究中补充基本的研究主题，尤其是在回答与入侵过程和入侵者影响的生理和生态机制有关的问题时。
3. SIA最初仅用于简单地描述入侵者的饮食，但是最近，SIA通知的人口和社区营养结构的度量标准已经得到了发展。现在，这些方法可以比较不同时空的饮食，并提供定量工具来比较不同入侵阶段的食物网。
4. SIA在量化本地物种与非本地物种之间的资源竞争（例如争夺食物，水或养分的竞争）方面也起着关键作用。与分散模式（例如，起点和距离/行进方向）和建立机制有关的特定问题也可以在不同的分类单元中使用SIA来解决。
5. 首要目标是突出最近在入侵生态学的关键领域中使用SIA的研究的示例，并使用它们来综合可检验的预测，从而将SIA应用于未来的研究。最后，我们着重指出了前进的几条路径，并描述了量化入侵发生率，影响和机制方面未解决的挑战如何可能会受益于SIA的使用。