Abstract. Isotopic composition of nitrate (δ 15 N and δ 18 O) and particulate organic matter (POM; δ 15 N and δ 13 C) were measured in the Tillari Reservoir, located at the foothills of the Western Ghats, Maharashtra, western India. The reservoir, which is stratified during spring-summer and autumn seasons but gets vertically mixed during the southwest monsoon (SWM) and winter, is characterized by diverse redox nitrogen transformations in space and time. The δ 15 N and δ 18 O values of nitrate were low (δ 15 N = 2-10 ‰, δ 18 O = 5-8 ‰) during normoxic conditions but increased gradually (the highest at δ 15 N = 27 ‰, δ 18 O = 29 ‰) when anoxic conditions facilitated denitrification in the hypolimnion during spring-early summer. Once nitrate was fully utilized and sulfidic conditions set in, NH + 4 became the dominant inorganic N species, with δ 15 N ranging from 1.3 to 2.6 ‰. Low δ 15 N (∼ −5 ‰) and δ 13 C (−37 to −32 ‰) of POM cooccurring with high NH + 4 and CH 4 in sulfidic bottom waters were probably the consequence of microbial chemosynthesis. Assimilation of nitrate in the epilimnion was the major controlling process on the N isotopic composition of POM (δ 15 N = 2-6 ‰). Episodic low δ 15 N values of POM (−2 to 0 ‰) during early summer, coinciding with the absence of nitrate, might arise from N fixation, although further work is required to confirm the hypothesis. δ 13 C POM in the photic zone ranged between −29 and −27 ‰ for most parts of the year. The periods of mixing were characterized by uniform δ 15 N-NO