An assessment of mercury and its dietary drivers in fur of Arctic wolves from Greenland and High Arctic Canada
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Mercury has become a ubiquitous hazardous element even ending up in pristine areas such as the Arctic, where it biomagnifies and leaves especially top predators vulnerable to potential health effects. Here we investigate total mercury (THg) concentrations and dietary proxies for trophic position and habitat foraging (δ15N and δ13C, respectively) in fur of 30 Arctic wolves collected during 1869–1998 in the Canadian High Arctic and Greenland. Fur THg concentrations (mean ± SD) of 1.46 ± 1.39 μg g −1 dry weight are within the range of earlier reported values for other Arctic terrestrial species. Based on putative thresholds for Hg-mediated toxic health effects, the studied Arctic wolves have most likely not been at compromised health. Dietary proxies show high dietary plasticity among Arctic wolves deriving nutrition from both marine and terrestrial food sources at various trophic positions. Variability in THg concentrations seem to be related to the wolves' trophic position rather than to different carbon sources or regional differences (East Greenland, the Foxe Basin and Baffin Bay area, respectively). Although the present study remains limited due to the scarce, yet unique historic study material and small sample size, it provides novel information on temporal and spatial variation in Hg pollution of remote Arctic species.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Artikelnummer | 156171 |
Tidsskrift | Science of the Total Environment |
Vol/bind | 838 |
Udgave nummer | 2 |
Antal sider | 9 |
ISSN | 0048-9697 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2022 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:
We gratefully thank Kristian Gregersen, Mogens Andersen and Knud Rosenlund at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øystein Wiig at the Natural History Museum - University of Oslo, and Louise Tomsett, Natural History Museum of London. We further thank Tom Gilbert from University of Copenhagen and all contributors at the Danish museum of hunting and forestry, Denmark. We thank Frauke Stock at the German Environment Agency for providing resources that allowed to work on this manuscript. Gabriele Treu: Conceptualization, Writing - Original Draft; Review & Editing; Formal analysis (statistical analysis, modelling), Data Curation, Visualization, Funding acquisition; Thomas Gräff: Writing - review & editing, Formal analysis (statistical modelling), Visualization, Data Curation; Igor Eulaers: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Review & Editing, Formal analysis (Chemical analysis), Validation; Supervision, Funding acquisition, Jochen P Zubrod, Ralf Schulz: Performance and supervision of stable isotope analysis, Review & Editing. The remaining authors: Review & Editing. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
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