Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are at risk from high levels of biomagnifying pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury (Hg). Previous toxicological risk assessments for the Norwegian killer whale population have assumed fish as the primary prey source, and assessed the populatio...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7368030 2023-05-15T17:03:30+02:00 Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds Andvik, Clare Jourdain, Eve Ruus, Anders Lyche, Jan L. Karoliussen, Richard Borgå, Katrine 2020-07-17 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7368030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32681067 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68659-y en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7368030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32681067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68659-y © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68659-y 2020-07-26T00:35:15Z Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are at risk from high levels of biomagnifying pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury (Hg). Previous toxicological risk assessments for the Norwegian killer whale population have assumed fish as the primary prey source, and assessed the population as below established effect thresholds. However, some individuals have recently been identified to also feed on seals. This study is the first to quantify levels of pollutants in seal-eating killer whales from northern Norway, and to measure Hg levels in the skin of killer whales worldwide. We found higher levels of all pollutants in seal-eating than fish-eating killer whales, including the emerging brominated flame retardants pentabromoethylbenzene (PBEB), pentabromotoluene (PBT) and hexabromobenzene (HBB). Sum polychlorinated biphenyls (ΣPCBs) in the blubber of seal-eaters (n = 7, geometric mean = 46 µg/g l.w.) were four times higher than fish-eaters (n = 24, geometric mean = 11 µg/g l.w.), which pushed all seal-eating individuals above multiple thresholds for health effects. Total Hg levels in skin of seal-eaters (n = 10, arithmetic mean = 3.7 µg/g d.w.) were twice as high as in fish-eaters (n = 28, arithmetic mean = 1.8 µg/g d.w.). Our results indicate that by feeding on higher trophic prey, the Norwegian killer whale population is at higher risk of health effects from pollution than previously assumed. Text Killer Whale Northern Norway Orca Orcinus orca Killer whale PubMed Central (PMC) Norway Scientific Reports 10 1 |
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Article Andvik, Clare Jourdain, Eve Ruus, Anders Lyche, Jan L. Karoliussen, Richard Borgå, Katrine Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds |
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Article |
description |
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are at risk from high levels of biomagnifying pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury (Hg). Previous toxicological risk assessments for the Norwegian killer whale population have assumed fish as the primary prey source, and assessed the population as below established effect thresholds. However, some individuals have recently been identified to also feed on seals. This study is the first to quantify levels of pollutants in seal-eating killer whales from northern Norway, and to measure Hg levels in the skin of killer whales worldwide. We found higher levels of all pollutants in seal-eating than fish-eating killer whales, including the emerging brominated flame retardants pentabromoethylbenzene (PBEB), pentabromotoluene (PBT) and hexabromobenzene (HBB). Sum polychlorinated biphenyls (ΣPCBs) in the blubber of seal-eaters (n = 7, geometric mean = 46 µg/g l.w.) were four times higher than fish-eaters (n = 24, geometric mean = 11 µg/g l.w.), which pushed all seal-eating individuals above multiple thresholds for health effects. Total Hg levels in skin of seal-eaters (n = 10, arithmetic mean = 3.7 µg/g d.w.) were twice as high as in fish-eaters (n = 28, arithmetic mean = 1.8 µg/g d.w.). Our results indicate that by feeding on higher trophic prey, the Norwegian killer whale population is at higher risk of health effects from pollution than previously assumed. |
format |
Text |
author |
Andvik, Clare Jourdain, Eve Ruus, Anders Lyche, Jan L. Karoliussen, Richard Borgå, Katrine |
author_facet |
Andvik, Clare Jourdain, Eve Ruus, Anders Lyche, Jan L. Karoliussen, Richard Borgå, Katrine |
author_sort |
Andvik, Clare |
title |
Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds |
title_short |
Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds |
title_full |
Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds |
title_fullStr |
Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds |
title_full_unstemmed |
Preying on seals pushes killer whales from Norway above pollution effects thresholds |
title_sort |
preying on seals pushes killer whales from norway above pollution effects thresholds |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7368030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32681067 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68659-y |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
Killer Whale Northern Norway Orca Orcinus orca Killer whale |
genre_facet |
Killer Whale Northern Norway Orca Orcinus orca Killer whale |
op_source |
Sci Rep |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7368030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32681067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68659-y |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68659-y |
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Scientific Reports |
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