Discrimination the geographical origin of Yanchi Tan Lamb with different muscle sections by stable isotopic ratios and elemental profiles.

Summary: In the study, lamb, feed and soil samples were collected from three regions of China in the year 2017 and 2018. The δ13C and δ15N values in lamb (defatted dry mass and lipids) and grass and the contents of nine elements in lamb, grass and soil were determined. The results indicated that except for Fe, Zn and Rb, most variables of lamb showed significant differences among two or three regions, and the contents of Fe, Sr and Cs showed significant differences between two years, and the contents of Cu and Zn showed significant differences among different muscle sections. Besides, significant correlations were found for δ13C between defatted lamb and lipid (r2 = 0.973, P < 0.05) and for the element contents between lamb and soil. Finally, four key variables δ13C, δ15N, Sr and Mo were selected through stepwise canonical discriminant analysis with the cross‐validation correct classification rate of 99.1%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]