Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses
Methylmercury is a toxic form of mercury which persists in food webs for long periods of time and biomagnifies up successive trophic levels. Shorebirds breeding in the Arctic are exposed to methylmercury, derived from both natural and anthropogenic sources, when they ingest their invertebrate prey....
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3825058 2023-05-15T14:48:15+02:00 Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses McCloskey, Meagan Robinson, Stacey Smith, Paul A Forbes, Mark 2013-10-26 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3825058 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24255861 https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-567 en eng Springer International Publishing http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3825058 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24255861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-567 © McCloskey et al.; licensee Springer. 2013 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Research Text 2013 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-567 2013-11-24T01:34:23Z Methylmercury is a toxic form of mercury which persists in food webs for long periods of time and biomagnifies up successive trophic levels. Shorebirds breeding in the Arctic are exposed to methylmercury, derived from both natural and anthropogenic sources, when they ingest their invertebrate prey. Populations of many shorebird species are believed to be declining and one hypothesis for these declines is that they are due to detrimental effects of contaminants, including methylmercury. To test this hypothesis, we assessed mercury contamination in eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebird species: black-bellied plover (Pluvialis squatarola), ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres), semipalmated plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) and white-rumped sandpiper (Calidris fuscicollis). Black-bellied plovers and ruddy turnstones are declining in the western hemisphere, whereas white-rumped sandpipers and semipalmated plovers have stable or slightly increasing populations. We found no relationship between egg mercury concentration and population trend for these four shorebird species. Intraspecific variation in mercury concentration was high. Notably, the mercury concentrations were much higher than levels found in a previous study of eggs of the same shorebird species from this same site, suggesting that mercury contamination may be subject to substantial inter-annual variation in the Canadian Arctic food web. Text Arctic Arenaria interpres Ruddy Turnstone PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic SpringerPlus 2 1 |
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Research McCloskey, Meagan Robinson, Stacey Smith, Paul A Forbes, Mark Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
topic_facet |
Research |
description |
Methylmercury is a toxic form of mercury which persists in food webs for long periods of time and biomagnifies up successive trophic levels. Shorebirds breeding in the Arctic are exposed to methylmercury, derived from both natural and anthropogenic sources, when they ingest their invertebrate prey. Populations of many shorebird species are believed to be declining and one hypothesis for these declines is that they are due to detrimental effects of contaminants, including methylmercury. To test this hypothesis, we assessed mercury contamination in eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebird species: black-bellied plover (Pluvialis squatarola), ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres), semipalmated plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) and white-rumped sandpiper (Calidris fuscicollis). Black-bellied plovers and ruddy turnstones are declining in the western hemisphere, whereas white-rumped sandpipers and semipalmated plovers have stable or slightly increasing populations. We found no relationship between egg mercury concentration and population trend for these four shorebird species. Intraspecific variation in mercury concentration was high. Notably, the mercury concentrations were much higher than levels found in a previous study of eggs of the same shorebird species from this same site, suggesting that mercury contamination may be subject to substantial inter-annual variation in the Canadian Arctic food web. |
format |
Text |
author |
McCloskey, Meagan Robinson, Stacey Smith, Paul A Forbes, Mark |
author_facet |
McCloskey, Meagan Robinson, Stacey Smith, Paul A Forbes, Mark |
author_sort |
McCloskey, Meagan |
title |
Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
title_short |
Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
title_full |
Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
title_fullStr |
Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
title_full_unstemmed |
Mercury concentration in the eggs of four Canadian Arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
title_sort |
mercury concentration in the eggs of four canadian arctic-breeding shorebirds not predicted based on their population statuses |
publisher |
Springer International Publishing |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3825058 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24255861 https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-567 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Arenaria interpres Ruddy Turnstone |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arenaria interpres Ruddy Turnstone |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3825058 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24255861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-567 |
op_rights |
© McCloskey et al.; licensee Springer. 2013 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-567 |
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2 |
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