Stable isotope methods can be used to determine the food sources and prey items of aquatic organisms accurately and reliably. This study examined the relative contribution of artificial foods (the formulated feed and Artemia) and natural foods to shrimp growth in an intensive Fenneropenaeus chinensis pond by using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. The results showed that the nutrition utilization efficiency of the harvested shrimp was low,only 33.18% of feed nitrogen and 21.73% of feed carbon being converted to shrimp flesh. Our stable isotope results showed that the shrimp obtained nutrition for maximum growth from artificial foods,whose contribution was 93.5%,with the remaining attributed to the natural foods. However,there was 0.94 t harvested shrimp derived from natural foods (the rest of 13.56 t harvested shrimp derived from artificial foods) in 1ha intensive pond with a shrimp production of 14.50 t ha-1. Therefore,unit area shrimp production can be increased by increasing the contribution proportion of natu-ral foods in intensive shrimp farming. Stable isotope methods can be used to determine the food sources and prey items of aquatic crops accurately and reliably. This study examined the relative contribution of artificial foods (the formulated feed and Artemia) and natural foods to shrimp growth in an intensive Fenneropenaeus chinensis pond by using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. The results showed that the nutrition utilization efficiency of the harvested shrimp was low, only 33.18% of feed nitrogen and 21.73% of feed carbon being converted to shrimp flesh. Our stable isotope results showed that the shrimp obtained nutrition However, there was 0.94 t harvested shrimp derived from natural foods (the rest of 13.56 t harvested shrimp derived from artificial foods) in 1ha intensive pond with a shrimp production of 14.50 t ha-1. Therefore, unit area shrimp production can be increased by increasing the contribution proportion of natu-ral foods in intensive shrimp farming.