Relationships between mercury concentrations in fur and stomach contents of river otter (Lontra canadensis) and mink (Neovison vison) in Northern Alberta Canada and their applications as proxies for environmental factors determining mercury bioavailability

Eccles, Kristin M.; Thomas, Philippe J.; Chan, Hing Man

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2019.108961

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, we do know that this genus is associated with marine and freshwater animals and may reflect the fish‐based diet of river otters (Gilbert and Nancekivell 1982; Reid et al 1994). Carnobacterium was also found in mink gut microbiota (Zhao et al 2017), and minks and river otters share a similar diet (Eccles et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This value was chosen to simulate a realistic home range area for each river otter and would be representative of the environment it lives in. This metric was based on previous radiotelemetry data of river otters (Reid et al 1994; Eccles et al 2020).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Certain DNA‐based techniques such as polymorphic microsatellite loci in mustelid scats were used to evaluate river otter demography, to determine contaminant presence (Guertin et al 2010), and to understand population genetic structure (Klütsch and Thomas 2018). In addition, river otter and mink fur were determined to be a good biomarker for determining mercury body burden (Eccles et al 2020). Recent studies suggest that the gut microbiota could be a potential biomarker for aquatic toxicology and chemical risk assessment (Adamovsky et al 2018), but no data have been available on freshwater mammals such as river otters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Gut Microbial Community Structure of the North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) in the Alberta Oil Sands Region in Canada: Relationship with Local Environmental Variables and Metal Body Burden

Guo

Eccles

McMillan

et al. 2020

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Alberta Oil Sands Region in Canada is home to one of the largest oil bitumen deposits in the world. The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) is a top predator with a small home range and is sensitive to disturbances; it has been designated as a sentinel species for the potential impacts of the natural resource exploitation on freshwater ecosystems in the Alberta Oil Sands Region. With an increasing interest in noninvasive biomarkers, recent studies suggest that gut microbiota can be used as a potential biomarker of early biological effects on aquatic wildlife. The goal of the present study was to determine the river otter gut microbial structure related to environmental variables characterizing mining activities and metal body burden. We obtained 18 trapped animals from and surrounding the surface mineable area of the Alberta Oil Sands Region. The gut microbial community structure was characterized using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicon analyses. Trace metal concentrations in the liver were measured by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Our study revealed that the gut bacteria of river otters in the Alberta Oil Sands Region clustered in 4 groups dominated by Peptostreptococcaceae, Carnobacteriaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Clostridiaceae, and Nostocaceae. We show that arsenic, barium, rubidium, liver-body weight ratio, and δ 15 N were associated with each cluster. When comparing affected versus less affected sites, we show that river otter gut bacterial community and structure are significantly related to trophic level of the river otter but not to Alberta Oil Sands Region mining activities. Our study reveals that the gut bacterial dynamics can provide insights into the diet and habitat use of river otters but that more work is needed to use it as a pollution biomarker.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Gut Microbial Community Structure of the North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) in the Alberta Oil Sands Region in Canada: Relationship with Local Environmental Variables and Metal Body Burden

Guo

Eccles

McMillan

et al. 2020

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Changes in landscape features (i.e., connectivity) and usage by wildlife can change the predator-prey relationship changing the trophic position where wildlife are feeding [55]. The trophic position has implications for altering exposures and body burdens [10,29]. Our environmental fitting analysis showed that habitat intactness was opposite to mining and mining-associated metals and PTEs on the ordination plot ( Fig 5A).…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 95%

“…All trapped mammals used in this study are adults. Carcasses were stored at − 20˚C until the completion of gross necropsies, where the livers were dissected for chemical analysis [13,29]. Fisher and marten favor old-growth coniferous forest with dense canopy cover [13] while the semi-aquatic furbearers inhabit the shorelines of rivers and lakes [30].…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Geospatial analysis of the patterns of chemical exposures among biota in the Canadian Oil Sands Region

2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding the patterns of chemical exposure among biota across a landscape is challenging due to the spatial heterogeneity and complexity of the sources, pathways, and fate of the different chemicals. While spatially-driven relationships between contaminant sources and biota body burdens of a single chemical are commonly modelled, there has been little effort on modelling chemical mixtures across multiple wildlife species in the Canadian Oil Sands region. In this study, we used spatial principal components analysis (sPCA) to assess spatial patterns of the body burdens of 22 metals and Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) in 492 individual wildlife, including fur-bearing mammals, colonial waterbirds, and amphibians collected from the Canadian Oil Sands region in Canada. Spatial analysis and mapping both indicate that some of the complex exposures in the studied biota are distributed randomly across a landscape, which suggests background or non-point source exposures. In contrast, the pattern of exposure for seven metals and PTEs, including mercury, vanadium, lead, rubidium, lithium, strontium, and barium, exhibited a clustered pattern to the east of the open-pit mining area and in regions downstream of oil sands development which indicates point-source input. This analysis demonstrated useful methods for integrating monitoring datasets and identifying sources and potential drivers of exposure to chemical mixtures in biota across a landscape. These results can be used to support an adaptive monitoring program by identifying regions needing additional monitoring, health impact assessments, and possible intervention strategies.

show abstract

A synthetic review of terrestrial biological research from the Alberta oil sands region: 10 years of published literature

Roberts

Bayne

Beausoleil

et al. 2021

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the past decade, a large volume of peer‐reviewed papers has examined the potential impacts of oil and gas resource extraction in the Canadian oil sands (OS). A large proportion focuses on terrestrial biology: wildlife, birds, and vegetation. We provide a qualitative synthesis of the condition of the environment in the oil sands region (OSR) from 2009 to 2020 to identify gaps and progress cumulative effects assessments. Our objectives were to (1) qualitatively synthesize and critically review knowledge from the OSR; (2) identify consistent trends and generalizable conclusions; and (3) pinpoint gaps in need of greater monitoring or research effort. We visualize knowledge and terrestrial monitoring foci by allocating papers to a conceptual model for the OS. Despite a recent increase in publications, focus has remained concentrated on a few key stressors, especially landscape disturbance, and a few taxa of interest. Stressor and response monitoring is well represented, but direct monitoring of pathways (linkages between stressors and responses) is limited. Important knowledge gaps include understanding effects at multiple spatial scales, mammal health effects monitoring, focused monitoring of local resources important to Indigenous communities, and geospatial coverage and availability, including higher attribute resolution in human footprint, comprehensive land cover mapping, and up‐to‐date LiDAR coverage. Causal attribution based on spatial proximity to operations or spatial orientation of monitoring in the region is common but may be limited in the strength of inference that it provides. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:388–406. © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

show abstract

Relationships between mercury concentrations in fur and stomach contents of river otter (Lontra canadensis) and mink (Neovison vison) in Northern Alberta Canada and their applications as proxies for environmental factors determining mercury bioavailability

Cited by 9 publications

References 65 publications

The Gut Microbial Community Structure of the North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) in the Alberta Oil Sands Region in Canada: Relationship with Local Environmental Variables and Metal Body Burden

The Gut Microbial Community Structure of the North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) in the Alberta Oil Sands Region in Canada: Relationship with Local Environmental Variables and Metal Body Burden

Geospatial analysis of the patterns of chemical exposures among biota in the Canadian Oil Sands Region

A synthetic review of terrestrial biological research from the Alberta oil sands region: 10 years of published literature

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About