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Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore
Limited information exists on mercury concentrations and environmental drivers of mercury bioaccumulation in high latitude terrestrial carnivores. Spatial patterns of mercury concentrations in wolverine (Gulo gulo, n = 419) were assessed across a 1,600,000 km(2) study area in relation to landscape,...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10184919/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37186585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285826 |
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author | Peraza, Inés Chételat, John Richardson, Murray Jung, Thomas S. Awan, Malik Baryluk, Steve Dastoor, Ashu Harrower, William Kukka, Piia M. McClelland, Christine Mowat, Garth Pelletier, Nicolas Rodford, Christine Ryjkov, Andrei |
author_facet | Peraza, Inés Chételat, John Richardson, Murray Jung, Thomas S. Awan, Malik Baryluk, Steve Dastoor, Ashu Harrower, William Kukka, Piia M. McClelland, Christine Mowat, Garth Pelletier, Nicolas Rodford, Christine Ryjkov, Andrei |
author_sort | Peraza, Inés |
collection | PubMed |
description | Limited information exists on mercury concentrations and environmental drivers of mercury bioaccumulation in high latitude terrestrial carnivores. Spatial patterns of mercury concentrations in wolverine (Gulo gulo, n = 419) were assessed across a 1,600,000 km(2) study area in relation to landscape, climate, diet and biological factors in Arctic and boreal biomes of western Canada. Hydrogen stable isotope ratios were measured in wolverine hair from a subset of 80 animals to assess the spatial scale for characterizing environmental conditions of their habitat. Habitat characteristics were determined using GIS methods and raster datasets at two scales, the collection location point and a 150 km radius buffer, which was selected based on results of a correlation analysis between hydrogen stable isotopes in precipitation and wolverine hair. Total mercury concentrations in wolverine muscle ranged >2 orders of magnitude from 0.01 to 5.72 μg/g dry weight and varied geographically, with the highest concentrations in the Northwest Territories followed by Nunavut and Yukon. Regression models at both spatial scales indicated diet (based on nitrogen stable isotope ratios) was the strongest explanatory variable of mercury concentrations in wolverine, with smaller though statistically significant contributions from landscape variables (soil organic carbon, percent cover of wet area, percent cover of perennial snow-ice) and distance to the Arctic Ocean coast. The carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of wolverine muscle suggested greater mercury bioaccumulation could be associated with feeding on marine biota in coastal habitats. Landscape variables identified in the modelling may reflect habitat conditions which support enhanced methylmercury transfer to terrestrial biota. Spatially-explicit estimates of wet atmospheric deposition were positively correlated with wolverine mercury concentrations but this variable was not selected in the final regression models. These landscape patterns provide a basis for further research on underlying processes enhancing methylmercury uptake in high latitude terrestrial food webs. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10184919 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-101849192023-05-16 Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore Peraza, Inés Chételat, John Richardson, Murray Jung, Thomas S. Awan, Malik Baryluk, Steve Dastoor, Ashu Harrower, William Kukka, Piia M. McClelland, Christine Mowat, Garth Pelletier, Nicolas Rodford, Christine Ryjkov, Andrei PLoS One Research Article Limited information exists on mercury concentrations and environmental drivers of mercury bioaccumulation in high latitude terrestrial carnivores. Spatial patterns of mercury concentrations in wolverine (Gulo gulo, n = 419) were assessed across a 1,600,000 km(2) study area in relation to landscape, climate, diet and biological factors in Arctic and boreal biomes of western Canada. Hydrogen stable isotope ratios were measured in wolverine hair from a subset of 80 animals to assess the spatial scale for characterizing environmental conditions of their habitat. Habitat characteristics were determined using GIS methods and raster datasets at two scales, the collection location point and a 150 km radius buffer, which was selected based on results of a correlation analysis between hydrogen stable isotopes in precipitation and wolverine hair. Total mercury concentrations in wolverine muscle ranged >2 orders of magnitude from 0.01 to 5.72 μg/g dry weight and varied geographically, with the highest concentrations in the Northwest Territories followed by Nunavut and Yukon. Regression models at both spatial scales indicated diet (based on nitrogen stable isotope ratios) was the strongest explanatory variable of mercury concentrations in wolverine, with smaller though statistically significant contributions from landscape variables (soil organic carbon, percent cover of wet area, percent cover of perennial snow-ice) and distance to the Arctic Ocean coast. The carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of wolverine muscle suggested greater mercury bioaccumulation could be associated with feeding on marine biota in coastal habitats. Landscape variables identified in the modelling may reflect habitat conditions which support enhanced methylmercury transfer to terrestrial biota. Spatially-explicit estimates of wet atmospheric deposition were positively correlated with wolverine mercury concentrations but this variable was not selected in the final regression models. These landscape patterns provide a basis for further research on underlying processes enhancing methylmercury uptake in high latitude terrestrial food webs. Public Library of Science 2023-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10184919/ /pubmed/37186585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285826 Text en © 2023 Peraza et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Peraza, Inés Chételat, John Richardson, Murray Jung, Thomas S. Awan, Malik Baryluk, Steve Dastoor, Ashu Harrower, William Kukka, Piia M. McClelland, Christine Mowat, Garth Pelletier, Nicolas Rodford, Christine Ryjkov, Andrei Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
title | Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
title_full | Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
title_fullStr | Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
title_full_unstemmed | Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
title_short | Diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
title_sort | diet and landscape characteristics drive spatial patterns of mercury accumulation in a high-latitude terrestrial carnivore |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10184919/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37186585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285826 |
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