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Hg speciation and stable isotopic composition in marine mammals: new insights and perspectives
Pinzone, Marianna; Acquarone, Mario; Tessier, Emmanuel et al.
2019WMMC19 - World Marine Mammal Conference
 

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Keywords :
Mercury stable isotopes; Arctic; marine mammals
Abstract :
[en] Mercury (Hg) is a persistent toxic compound whose amount in the global biosphere has at least tripled since industrialization. Recently, the study of the seven Hg stable isotopes has emerged as a new promising technique affording to explore the Hg cycle both in situ and in laboratory. Mercury stable isotopes display both mass dependent fractionation (MDF, reported as δ202Hg) and mass independent fractionation (MIF, reported as Δ199Hg and Δ201Hg). Our recent findings about Hg accumulation in the European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax, showed how the combination of Hg isotopic values with Hg speciation allow tracing back Hg environmental sources as well as metabolic pathways within the organisms. However, such interpretation gets more complicated in more physiologically complex animals such as seals. With the aim of study basal Hg kinetic in an top predator without the influence of distribution and diet specialization, we measured T-Hg levels, speciation and isotopic composition in 6 captive pups of hooded seals, Cystophora cristata, and their diet the Norwegian herring Clupea harengus. The main objective was to select the tissue in which the information about Hg pathways would be conserved, leading to the optimal tracing of Hg sources along the food web. MMHg ranged between 84 to 98% in hair, 74 to 95% in muscle, 7 to 38% in liver and 4 to 27% in kidney. A significant 202Hg enrichment resulted between seal hair and herring (p = 0.011), indicating important MDF between the ingested prey and these tissues. Instead, a significant MIF (Δ199Hg and Δ201 values) was observed only between seals’ kidney and herring (p = 0.0003). Our results showed that hair represents the best tissue for the analysis of Hg biomagnification along food webs; and that with the exception of kidney, MIF signal is conserved in all tissues during assimilation of prey items.
Research center :
FOCUS - Freshwater and OCeanic science Unit of reSearch - ULiège
Disciplines :
Environmental sciences & ecology
Author, co-author :
Pinzone, Marianna  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Biologie, Ecologie et Evolution > Océanographie biologique
Acquarone, Mario
Tessier, Emmanuel
Bérail, Sylvain
Amouroux, David
Das, Krishna  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Biologie, Ecologie et Evolution > Océanographie biologique
Language :
English
Title :
Hg speciation and stable isotopic composition in marine mammals: new insights and perspectives
Publication date :
11 December 2019
Event name :
WMMC19 - World Marine Mammal Conference
Event organizer :
ECS and SMM
Event place :
Barcelona, Spain
Event date :
from 08-12-2019 to 12-12-2019
Audience :
International
Name of the research project :
SODYMARS
Funders :
F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique [BE]
Available on ORBi :
since 13 January 2020

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