Given a nonincreasing function f : ℤ≥ 0 \{0} → ℤ≥ 0 such that (i) f(k) − f(k + 1) ≤ 1 for all k ≥ 1 and (ii) if a = f(1) and b = limk → ∞f(k), then |f−1(a)| ≤ |f−1(a − 1)| ≤ ··· ≤ |f−1(b + 1)|, a system of generators of a monomial ideal I ⊂ K[x1, . . ., xn] for which depth S/Ik = f(k) for all k ≥ 1 is explicitly described. Furthermore, we give a characterization of triplets of integers (n, d, r) with n > 0, d ≥ 0 and r > 0 with the properties that there exists a monomial ideal I ⊂ S = K[x1, . . ., xn] for which limk→∞ depth S/Ik = d and dstab(I) = r, where dstab(I) is the smallest integer k0 ≥ 1 with depth S/Ik0 = depth S/Ik0+1 = depth S/Ik0+2 = ···.