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Otolith Chemistry of Common Sculpins (Myoxocephalus scorpius) in a Mining Polluted Greenlandic Fiord (Black Angel Lead-Zinc Mine, West Greenland)

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Abstract

Sculpins are widely used as key species for monitoring heavy metal pollution near arctic mine sites. Typically, metal concentrations in liver and muscle tissue have been used as a proxy for metal exposure but such analyses lack temporal information of uptake and accumulation. Otoliths (ear bones) are considered metabolically stable and can potentially contain a complete record of the fish’s metal exposure history. To investigate the otolith chemistry of sculpins and the potential of these as records of metal exposure, common sculpins (Myoxocephalus scorpius) were collected at five sites near a former Pb–Zn mine in West Greenland. Otoliths were analyzed by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for 12 elements of which Mg, Mn, Sr, Ba, and Pb were detected. The highest Pb concentrations were found within the otoliths from the most Pb-polluted sites near the mine (up to 0.6 ppm), and decreasing concentrations were observed in a gradient away from the mine. Notably, Pb and Sr variations were closely correlated and showed an annual oscillatory pattern with peaks consistently found in the winter zones. It is not clear to what the extent high winter-time accumulation of Pb in the otoliths is due to high winter-time exposure of Pb through diet or water and/or to physiological processes such as growth in the sculpins. The study indicates that LA-ICP-MS analyses of sculpin otoliths have the potential to become a valuable method for assessing time-resolved metal loading near mine sites but also that more studies are required to investigate the links between metal sources, pathways, and processes affecting otolith metal deposition.

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Acknowledgments

The Arctic Research Centre at Aarhus University in Denmark and The Environment Agency for Mineral Resources Activities in Greenland are acknowledged for the financial support. Zhe Song and Panseok Yang from University of Manitoba, Canada, are thanked for the helpful assistance in the laboratory and for performing the LA-ICP-MS analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arctic Research Centre, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, Roskilde, DK-4000, Denmark

    Jens Søndergaard, Lis Bach, Kim Gustavson, Christian Sonne & Anders Mosbech

  2. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada

    Norman Halden

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  1. Jens Søndergaard
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  2. Norman Halden
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  3. Lis Bach
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  4. Kim Gustavson
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  5. Christian Sonne
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  6. Anders Mosbech
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Correspondence to Jens Søndergaard.

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Søndergaard, J., Halden, N., Bach, L. et al. Otolith Chemistry of Common Sculpins (Myoxocephalus scorpius) in a Mining Polluted Greenlandic Fiord (Black Angel Lead-Zinc Mine, West Greenland). Water Air Soil Pollut 226, 336 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-015-2605-1

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