Seasonal, interannual, and long-term variation in sport fish contamination, San Francisco Bay

Life Histories, Salinity Zones, and Sublethal Contributions of Contaminants to Pelagic Fish Declines Illustrated with a Case Study of San Francisco Estuary, California, USA

“…Laboratory findings have not been replicated in the field or laboratory for other species. Fishes in the Estuary contain mercury and selenium but tissue concentrations of these elements were not reported as ratios within the same individual, and thus cannot be related to possible protection against mercury toxicity (Saiki et al 1992;Greenfield et al 2005).…”

Seasonal variation of mercury and δ15N in fish from Lake Heddalsvatn, southern Norway

“…The cold and dark environment present at that time of the year implies minor biological production at all ecosystem levels. Accordingly, the activities of many fish species, including feeding activity, are at minimum (Greenfield et al, 2005) and variuous degrees of starvation likely appear in the fish populations. Conversely, during the growth season (May-October), feeding activity, growth rate and growth efficiency are high (Lindqvist et al, 1991), and the body mass of the fish increases rapidly (Talbot, 1993).…”

Sediment-adsorbed total mercury flux through Yolo Bypass, the primary floodway and wetland in the Sacramento Valley, California

“…Much attention has been paid to mercury sources and sinks in the Sacramento River basin of California, due to the legacy of hydraulic gold mining in the Sierra Nevada and Hg mining in the Coast Ranges, which has created persistent contamination of lowland sediments and food webs (Bouse et al, 2010;Conaway et al, 2007;David et al, 2009;Davis et al, 2008;Domagalski, 2001;Eagles-Smith et al, 2009;Gehrke et al, 2011aGehrke et al, , 2009Greenfield et al, 2005;Greenfield and Jahn, 2010;Marvin-DiPasquale et al, 2009, 2003Roth et al, 2001;Rytuba, 2000). However, there is still great uncertainty in the mass balance of total mercury (THg) delivered to and stored in lowland floodplain environments from different source areas.…”

“…In total, between 1.4 and 4.5 × 10 6 kg of Hg are estimated to have been lost to the rivers draining the western slope of the Sierra Nevada (Alpers and Hunerlach, 2000;Churchill, 2000). This Hg has led to contamination of Sierradraining rivers in their piedmont courses that is registered in elevated bioaccumulation in the tissues of local aquatic species (Davis et al, 2008;Gehrke et al, 2011b;Hunerlach et al, 1999;Slotton et al, 1997;Slotton et al, 2003) and waterfowl (Eagles-Smith et al, 2009;Greenfield et al, 2005;Greenfield and Jahn, 2010), as well as in sediments (Alpers et al, 2005;Choe et al, 2004;Conaway et al, 2007;Domagalski, 2001;Domagalski et al, 2004;Gehrke et al, 2011a;James et al, 2009;Roth et al, 2001) at locations downstream of both gold and mercury mining sites in the basin.…”