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

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Abstract

Human effects on estuaries are often associated with major decreases in abundance of aquatic species. However, remediation priorities are difficult to identify when declines result from multiple stressors with interacting sublethal effects. The San Francisco Estuary offers a useful case study of the potential role of contaminants in declines of organisms because the waters of its delta chronically violate legal water quality standards; however, direct effects of contaminants on fish species are rarely observed. Lack of direct lethality in the field has prevented consensus that contaminants may be one of the major drivers of coincident but unexplained declines of fishes with differing life histories and habitats (anadromous, brackish, and freshwater). Our review of available evidence indicates that examining the effects of contaminants and other stressors on specific life stages in different seasons and salinity zones of the estuary is critical to identifying how several interacting stressors could contribute to a general syndrome of declines. Moreover, warming water temperatures of the magnitude projected by climate models increase metabolic rates of ectotherms, and can hasten elimination of some contaminants. However, for other pollutants, concurrent increases in respiratory rate or food intake result in higher doses per unit time without changes in the contaminant concentrations in the water. Food limitation and energetic costs of osmoregulating under altered salinities further limit the amount of energy available to fish; this energy must be redirected from growth and reproduction toward pollutant avoidance, enzymatic detoxification, or elimination. Because all of these processes require energy, bioenergetics methods are promising for evaluating effects of sublethal contaminants in the presence of other stressors, and for informing remediation. Predictive models that evaluate the direct and indirect effects of contaminants will be possible when data become available on energetic costs of exposure to contaminants given simultaneous exposure to non-contaminant stressors.

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Acknowledgments

We thank James Orlando, Kelly Smalling, and several anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. This work was supported by cooperative agreement number 113325G004 between the University of California–Santa Barbara and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and conducted as part of a working group convened in part at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

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Author notes

  1. Erica Fleishman

    Present address: John Muir Institute of the Environment, The Barn, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA, 95616, USA

  2. Inge Werner

    Present address: Swiss Centre for Applied Ecotoxicology, Eawag/EPFL, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, Southern Illinois University, 1125 E. Lincoln Dr., MC 6501, Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA

    Marjorie L. Brooks & James R. Lovvorn

  2. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, 3011 Bren Hall, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Erica Fleishman & David M. Stoms

  3. U.S. Geological Survey, California Water Science Center, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA, 95819, USA

    Larry R. Brown

  4. California Department of Water Resources, Division of Environmental Services, 3500 Industrial Boulevard, West Sacramento, CA, 95691, USA

    Peggy W. Lehman

  5. Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory, Department of Anatomy, Physiology, and Cell Biology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, 1330 F Haring Hall, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Inge Werner

  6. NOAA Fisheries, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Environmental Conservation Division, 2725 Montlake Blvd. E., Seattle, WA, 98112, USA

    Nathaniel Scholz

  7. Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, P.O. Box 38, Solomons, MD, 20688, USA

    Carys Mitchelmore

  8. Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Michael L. Johnson

  9. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, 2258 Geology, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    Daniel Schlenk

  10. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, Box 216 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Suzanne van Drunick

  11. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Department 3006, University of Wyoming, 1000 University Avenue, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    James I. Drever

  12. Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies, San Francisco State University, 3152 Paradise Drive, Tiburon, CA, 94920, USA

    Alex E. Parker & Richard Dugdale

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Brooks, M.L., Fleishman, E., Brown, L.R. et al. Life Histories, Salinity Zones, and Sublethal Contributions of Contaminants to Pelagic Fish Declines Illustrated with a Case Study of San Francisco Estuary, California, USA. Estuaries and Coasts 35, 603–621 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-011-9459-6

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