An Arctic mercury mystery : exploring environmental drivers of methylmercury bioaccumulation in the Beaufort Sea food web ...

• Main Author: Gillies, Emma
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Beaufort Sea; Beluga; Beluga*; Ice; inuit; permafrost; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0418593; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0418593

While mercury occurs naturally in the environment, human activity has significantly disturbed its biogeochemical cycle. Inorganic mercury entering aquatic systems can be transformed into methylmercury, a strong neurotoxicant that builds up in organisms and affects animal and public health. In the Arctic, top predators such as beluga whales—an ecologically and culturally significant species for many Inuit communities—can contain very high concentrations of methylmercury. Historical mercury concentrations in beluga in the western Canadian Arctic’s Beaufort Sea cannot be explained by mercury emissions trends alone, but they could potentially be driven by other factors in the rapidly changing Arctic, including rising temperatures, changes in food web structure, and melting sea ice and permafrost. This study explores the main drivers of mercury bioaccumulation in various species in the Beaufort Sea beluga food web using an ecosystem modelling software called Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) and scenarios of ...