Temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in Arctic marine and freshwater biota

Investigating decadal changes in persistent organic pollutants in Scottish grey seal pups

“…The BDE profiles from 2015-17 are similar to those found in the same population of grey seals from the late 1990s and in 2008 (Kalantzi, Hall, Thomas, & Jones, 2005;Vanden Berghe et al, 2012), found in the blubber from grey seals elsewhere (Ikonomou & Addison, 2008), and reported in recent studies on other marine mammals (Bjurlid, Dam, et al, 2018;Ochiai et al, 2017;Ramu, Kajiwara, Tanabe, Lam, & Jefferson, 2005;Rigét et al, 2006;Ross et al, 2013;Weijs, Dirtu, et al, 2009) of BDEs (Airaksinen et al, 2014;Bjurlid, Dam, et al, 2018;Bjurlid, Roos, et al, 2018;Houde et al, 2017;Rigét et al, 2006Rigét et al, , 2019Ross et al, 2013;Sanganyado, Rajput, & Liu, 2018;Shunthirasingham et al, 2018), and may have stabilized recently in some regions (Brown, MacDonald, Muir, & Letcher, 2018;Fernandes et al, 2018;Houde et al, 2017;Rigét et al, 2016Rigét et al, , 2019. In combination with the technical disparities discussed below, the BDE data here do not provide a sufficient recent time series to determine whether the bans have been effective at reducing BDEs in grey seal blubber, but provide a starting point for future studies or comparisons to investigate the efficacy of the ban and its impact on levels in top predators.…”

“…Despite a large gap in the timing of the data collection, the power to detect this change in total CBs and NDL-CBs was high; however, except for with several studies reporting that the declines in this group of chemicals found in the environment have slowed down after an initial rapid drop during the 1980s to early 1990s (Aguilar, Borrell, & Reijnders, 2002;Bjurlid, Roos, et al, 2018;Law et al, 2012;Law, 2014;Rigét, Vorkamp, Dietz, & Rastogi, 2006;Rigét et al, 2016Rigét et al, , 2019Ross et al, 2013;Vorkamp, Rigét, Bossi, & Dietz, 2011 Despite a large gap in the timing of the data collection, the power to detect this change in total CBs and NDL-CBs was high; however, except for with several studies reporting that the declines in this group of chemicals found in the environment have slowed down after an initial rapid drop during the 1980s to early 1990s (Aguilar, Borrell, & Reijnders, 2002;Bjurlid, Roos, et al, 2018;Law et al, 2012;Law, 2014;Rigét, Vorkamp, Dietz, & Rastogi, 2006;Rigét et al, 2016Rigét et al, , 2019Ross et al, 2013;Vorkamp, Rigét, Bossi, & Dietz, 2011 …”

“…POPs can either be directly released into marine environments from poorly regulated or unidentified sources (Gómez-Gutiérrez, Garnacho, Bayona, & Albaigés, 2007) or are transported in the atmosphere and deposited into marine waters from distant regions of the world (Dachs et al, 2002;Jurado et al, 2004). Monitoring POP concentrations is essential to understand their occurrence and fate in ecosystems, evaluate mitigation strategies, identify hot spots of contamination, and document negative impacts on marine wildlife (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), 2018; Rigét et al, 2016Rigét et al, , 2019Tanabe, 2002). Oceans thus act as key sinks for these chemicals and can be slow to respond to regulatory measures that have more immediate impacts in terrestrial environments.…”

“…Data on trends in marine mammal POP concentrations in the decades following their restriction are well represented in the literature (e.g. Data on temporal changes in POP levels in marine mammals since the 2010s are relatively scarce, however (AMAP, 2018;Houde et al, 2017;Law, 2014;Rigét et al, 2016Rigét et al, , 2019. Data on temporal changes in POP levels in marine mammals since the 2010s are relatively scarce, however (AMAP, 2018;Houde et al, 2017;Law, 2014;Rigét et al, 2016Rigét et al, , 2019.…”

“…Note the differences in y-axis ranges to allow the visualization of the data range for each congener from the Artic, which generally show falling DDT, but no change in DDD and DDE in marine mammals(Rigét et al, 2019). The current results also show a drop in DDT, an increase in DDE, and no change in DDD and HCB between 2002 and 2015-17.This is typical of time trends in these chemicals in a range of biota Median dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyl (DL-CB) concentrations for each congener measured in blubber from weaned pups in 2002 (n = 60) and 2016-17 (n = 52) on the Isle of May, with upper and lower quartiles, 1.5× interquartile range, and outliers.…”