Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue H9X 3V9, Canada.
Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Carleton University, Raven Road, Ottawa K1A 0H3, Canada.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2018 Oct;135:907-914. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.07.075. Epub 2018 Aug 15.
Mercury (Hg) biotransformation and biomagnification are processes that affect Hg burdens in wildlife. To interpret variation in Hg in seabird eggs, used as Hg bioindicators in the Arctic, it is important to understand how Hg biomagnifies through the food web. We evaluated the use of δS, along with other commonly used stable isotope signatures (δN and δC), for the determination of possible sources of Hg in an Arctic food web (56 individuals of 15 species of fish and invertebrates). Hg correlated with δS (R = 0.72). When the combined effects of δS and δN were considered in mixed-effects models, both δS and δN together described Hg patterns in Arctic food webs better than either isotope alone. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of δS to account for variation in Hg among marine animals and to study the possible underlying effects that MeHg production may have on Hg pathways in Arctic ecosystems.
汞（Hg）的生物转化和生物放大是影响野生动物体内汞负荷的过程。为了解释北极地区海鸟蛋中汞的变化，这些蛋被用作汞的生物标志物，了解汞如何通过食物网生物放大是很重要的。我们评估了 δS 与其他常用的稳定同位素特征（δN 和 δC）一起用于确定北极食物网中汞的可能来源（56 个个体的 15 种鱼类和无脊椎动物）。Hg 与 δS 呈正相关（R=0.72）。当在混合效应模型中考虑 δS 和 δN 的综合效应时，δS 和 δN 一起比单独使用任何一种同位素都能更好地描述北极食物网中的 Hg 模式。我们的结果表明，δS 可用于解释海洋动物之间 Hg 的变化，并研究 MeHg 产生可能对北极生态系统中 Hg 途径产生的潜在影响。
