Abstract
Mercury (Hg) levels in the environment have substantially increased over the past century leading to increased concentrations in many high trophic level predators, including Arctic seabirds. From the Canadian high Arctic, research on seabird eggs has documented some of the greatest concentrations of egg Hg anywhere in the Arctic. Farther east, in high Arctic Greenland, no similar data on Hg concentrations in eggs exist, making spatial comparisons unfeasible. To address this paucity of data, we collected whole eggs from Thick-billed Murre Uria lomvia (n = 11), Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla (n = 9), and Common Eider Somateria mollissima (n = 12) in the high Arctic of northwest Greenland in the summer of 2014 and assessed their concentration of total Hg. Thick-billed Murre eggs had the highest mean total Hg concentrations (1.32 ± 0.42 mg g−1 dw) followed by kittiwakes (0.64 ± 0.19) and eiders (0.23 ± 0.10). When compared with murre and kittiwake egg samples collected in high Arctic Canada during the same time period, total Hg concentrations from northwest Greenland were higher, but not significantly. Based on what is known about lethal Hg concentrations in murre eggs, these results indicate that some murre eggs may be at risk for increased embryonic mortality and further monitoring is suggested to determine long-term trends in egg Hg concentrations.
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Data availability
All data are available from the corresponding author and are archived by the High Arctic Institute.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Bridger Konkel for assistance collecting samples. Further, they thank the Greenland Home Rule Government for providing permits to work in Greenland and the U.S. Air Force for providing access to Thule Air Base. The authors are indebted to Polar Field Services, specifically Jessy Jenkins and Kim Derry, the 109th Air National Guard, the US National Science Foundation, the US Bureau of Land Management, and Greenland Contractors for their assistance with logistical support. They extend additional thanks to Calen Offield and the Offield Family Foundation, the Wolf Creek Charitable Trust, Patagonia, Augustana College, and many others who have donated to the High Arctic Institute for providing financial support for this research. They extend special thanks to the residents of Thule Air Base for their long-standing support of all of their research projects in northwest Greenland. They thank Jennifer Provencher and Mandy Keogh for providing helpful feedback and revisions to this manuscript.
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Funding was provided by Offield Family Foundation, Wolf Creek Charitable Trust, Patagonia, and Augustana College.
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KB, JB, and FM designed the research. KB, JB, FM, and JJ collected and prepped samples in the field, and MC conducted the mercury analysis. All the authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.
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Burnham, K.K., Meyer, F.K., Burnham, J.L. et al. Mercury contamination of seabird and sea duck eggs from high Arctic Greenland. Polar Biol 44, 1195–1202 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02864-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02864-x