Department of Environmental Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, 341 E. 25th St., New York, NY, 10010, USA.
Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries, Highlands, NJ, 07732, USA.
Arch Environ Contam Toxicol. 2022 Jul;83(1):21-35. doi: 10.1007/s00244-022-00935-6. Epub 2022 May 29.
Sturgeon populations worldwide are threatened with extirpation but little is known about their tendency to bioaccumulate contaminants and their sensitivities to environmental burdens of these contaminants. Shortnose sturgeon and Atlantic sturgeon, two species that are federally endangered in the USA, co-occur in the Hudson River (HR) where high sediment levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-furans (PCDFs) occur. Previous controlled laboratory studies showed that young life-stages of both species are sensitive to toxicities at low levels of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and PCB126 exposure. The objective here was to measure congener-specific hepatic levels of PCBs and PCDD/Fs in HR specimens in order to determine if in situ bioaccumulation of these compounds is sufficiently high to have caused the early life-stage toxicities previously observed. Estimates of hepatic burdens of PCBs and PCDD/Fs were obtained from a small number of specimens of each species collected between 2014 and 2016 and specimens of shortnose sturgeon collected over 30 years earlier and archived in a museum collection. Several significant patterns emerged. Hepatic levels of legacy PCBs and PCDDs were low in specimens of both species but typically higher in shortnose than Atlantic sturgeon, a pattern consistent with their habitat use in the HR. Hepatic burdens in shortnose sturgeon tended to be higher in archived specimens than in more recently collected ones despite expected reduction in archived specimens due to preservation methods. Several inadvertent PCBs congeners were detected at high levels, including PCB11, but their toxicity to natural populations remains unknown. Levels of select PCDFs congeners, 2,3,7,8-TCDF and 2,3,4,7,8 PeCDF, were elevated in some shortnose sturgeon individuals from the HR. Using Relative Potency (ReP) factors derived from white sturgeon, the observed levels of some hepatic PCDFs in HR shortnose sturgeon may have been sufficiently high to impair recruitment of young life-stages in this ecosystem.
全球范围内的鲟鱼种群正面临灭绝的威胁，但人们对它们积累污染物的倾向及其对这些污染物环境负担的敏感性知之甚少。短吻鲟和大西洋鲟是美国联邦濒危物种，它们在哈德逊河（HR）中共同出现，这里的多氯联苯（PCBs）、多氯二苯并对二恶英（PCDDs）和多氯二苯并呋喃（PCDFs）的沉积物含量很高。先前的受控实验室研究表明，这两个物种的幼鱼对低水平的 2,3,7,8-四氯二苯并对二恶英（TCDD）和 PCB126 暴露具有敏感性。本研究的目的是测量 HR 标本中特定同类的肝内 PCB 和 PCDD/Fs 含量，以确定这些化合物的原位生物积累是否足以导致先前观察到的早期生命阶段毒性。从 2014 年至 2016 年期间采集的每个物种的少量标本以及在博物馆收藏中保存了 30 多年的短吻鲟标本中获得了 PCB 和 PCDD/Fs 的肝负荷估计值。出现了几种重要模式。两种物种的肝内 PCB 和 PCDD 含量均较低，但短吻鲟的含量通常高于大西洋鲟，这一模式与其在 HR 中的栖息地利用一致。尽管由于保存方法，预期存档标本中的 PCB 会减少，但短吻鲟的存档标本中的肝负荷往往高于最近采集的标本。尽管一些无意的 PCB 同系物含量很高，包括 PCB11，但它们对自然种群的毒性仍不清楚。一些 HR 短吻鲟个体的几种选择 PCDF 同系物，2,3,7,8-TCDF 和 2,3,4,7,8-PeCDF 的含量升高。使用源自白鲟的相对效力（ReP）因子，HR 短吻鲟肝内某些 PCDF 的观察水平可能已经高到足以损害该生态系统中幼鱼的补充。
