Arctic Seabirds Transport Marine-Derived

• Main Authors: Jules M. Blais, Lynda E. Kimpe, Dominique Mcmahon, Bronwyn E. Keatley, Mark L. Mallory, Marianne S. V. Douglas, John P. Smol
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Bear Island; Guano
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.610.8482; http://post.queensu.ca/~pearl/Blaisetal2005Science.pdf

Transport of pollutants by migratory species, such as salmon, is known to affect contaminant distributions in Alaskan nursery lakes (1, 2). Arctic seabirds may also be transporting industrial and agricultural contaminants from the ocean to land. Most of these seabirds are pelagic feeders with populations concentrated in very large breeding colonies of more than 20,000 individuals (3). Local nutrient en-richment from guano has been documented, but the possibility of contamination in areas near seabird nesting sites has been largely over-looked. In a recent study on Bear Island, the presence of seabird colonies adjacent to one lake coincided with elevated polychlorinated