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Spatiotemporal trends of mercury in walleye and largemouth bass from the Laurentian Great Lakes Region

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Abstract

The risk of mercury (Hg) exposure to humans and wildlife from fish consumption has driven extensive mercury analysis throughout the Great Lakes Region since the 1970s. This study compiled fish-Hg data from multiple sources in the region and assessed spatiotemporal trends of Hg concentrations in two representative top predator fish species. Walleye (Sander vitreus) and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) were chosen for the trend analysis because they had more Hg records (63,872) than other fish species that had been sampled from waters throughout the region. Waterbody types were inland lakes (70%), the Great Lakes, impoundments, and rivers. The compiled datasets were analyzed with a mixed effects statistical model having random effects of station, year, and fish length; and fixed effects of year, tissue type, fish length, habitat, and season. The results showed a generally declining temporal trend in fish-Hg for the region (1970–2009), with spatial trends of increasing Hg concentration from south to north and from west to east across the region. Nonlinearity was evident in the general downward trends of Ontario walleye, with a shift to an upward trend beginning in the 1990s. Only ongoing monitoring can reveal if this upward shift is an oscillation in a long-term decline, a statistical anomaly, or a sustained declining temporal trend in regional fish-Hg concentrations.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the tribal, state, provincial, and federal agencies for sharing their fish monitoring data. This project was made possible by the energetic leadership of David Evers and James Wiener. We greatly appreciate their efforts to conceive of and organize the Great Lakes Hg Project. We also appreciate the BioDiversity Research Institute’s compilation of MercNet and maintenance of the project web site. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions to improve the draft manuscript. Funding for D. Staples and K. Williams was provided by a grant to BioDiversity Research Institute from the Great Lake Commission’s Great Lakes Atmospheric Deposition program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Saint Paul, MN, USA

    Bruce A. Monson

  2. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Forest Lake, MN, USA

    David F. Staples

  3. Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Satyendra P. Bhavsar

  4. Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA

    Thomas M. Holsen

  5. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Madison, WI, USA

    Candy S. Schrank

  6. Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, Odanah, WI, USA

    Sara K. Moses

  7. Environment Canada, Burlington, ON, Canada

    Daryl J. McGoldrick & Sean M. Backus

  8. BioDiversity Research Institute, Gorham, ME, USA

    Kathryn A. Williams

Authors
  1. Bruce A. Monson
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  2. David F. Staples
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  3. Satyendra P. Bhavsar
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  4. Thomas M. Holsen
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  9. Kathryn A. Williams
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Correspondence to Bruce A. Monson.

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Monson, B.A., Staples, D.F., Bhavsar, S.P. et al. Spatiotemporal trends of mercury in walleye and largemouth bass from the Laurentian Great Lakes Region. Ecotoxicology 20, 1555–1567 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-011-0715-0

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