Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, P.O Box 1066, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway.
DEBtox Research, Stevensweert, The Netherlands.
Ecotoxicology. 2024 Nov;33(9):1026-1038. doi: 10.1007/s10646-024-02796-2. Epub 2024 Aug 28.
The ongoing global climate crisis increases temperatures in polar regions faster and with greater magnitude than elsewhere. The decline of Arctic sea ice opens up new passages, eventually leading to higher anthropogenic activities such as shipping, fishing, and mining. Climate change and anthropogenic activities will increase contaminant transport from temperate to Arctic regions. The shipping industry uses copper as an antifouling coating. Copper is an essential element but becomes toxic at excess concentrations, and its use may inadvertently affect non-target organisms such as copepods. Copper affects copepods by lowering reproductive output, prolonging developmental time, and causing increased mortality. As data on copper sensitivity of polar copepods at low temperatures are rare, we conducted onboard survival experiments with the Arctic region's most common copepod species (Calanus finmarchicus, C. glacialis, C. hyperboreus). Acute survival tests were done for up to 8 days on individuals in 70 ml bottles at 1 °C with nominal copper concentrations ranging from 3 to 480 μg L. We used a reduced General Unified Threshold model for Survival (GUTS) to analyse the data, and placed our results in the context of the few published copper sensitivity data of the Antarctic and temperate copepod species at low temperatures. The sensitivity of Cu exposure was similar between the three Calanus species. However, a model comparison suggests that the tested C. glacialis population is less sensitive than the other two species in our experiments. Compared to published data, the three Arctic species appear slightly less sensitive to copper compared to their Antarctic counterparts but more compared to their temperate ones. Our literature search revealed only a few available studies on the copper sensitivity of polar copepods. In the future, this species group will be exposed to more pollutants, which warrants more studies to predict potential risks, especially given possible interactions with environmental factors.
目前全球气候危机导致极地地区的升温速度比其他地区更快、幅度更大。北极海冰的减少开辟了新的航道，最终导致人类活动（如航运、捕鱼和采矿）增加。气候变化和人类活动将增加污染物从温带向北极地区的传输。航运业将铜用作防污涂料。铜是一种必需元素，但在浓度过高时会变得有毒，其使用可能会无意中影响到桡足类等非目标生物。铜通过降低生殖产出、延长发育时间和增加死亡率来影响桡足类。由于有关极地桡足类在低温下对铜敏感性的数据很少，我们在船上进行了北极地区最常见的桡足类物种（美极后水蚤、北方真宽水蚤和北方冷水蚤）的生存实验。在 1°C 的 70ml 瓶中，对个体进行了长达 8 天的急性生存测试，名义铜浓度范围为 3 至 480μg/L。我们使用简化的通用统一阈值模型（GUTS）分析数据，并将我们的结果置于低温下南极和温带桡足类物种的少数已发表的铜敏感性数据的背景下。三种美极后水蚤对铜暴露的敏感性相似。然而，模型比较表明，在我们的实验中，测试的北方真宽水蚤种群比其他两种物种的敏感性低。与已发表的数据相比，三种北极物种对铜的敏感性似乎略低于它们的南极同类，但比它们的温带同类略高。我们的文献检索仅发现了一些关于极地桡足类铜敏感性的可用研究。在未来，这个物种群体将暴露于更多的污染物，这需要更多的研究来预测潜在风险，特别是考虑到与环境因素的可能相互作用。
