Abstract
Lake Champlain continues to experience mercury contamination resulting in public advisories to limit human consumption of top trophic level fish such as walleye. Prior research suggested that mercury levels in biota could be modified by differences in ecosystem productivity as well as mercury loadings. We investigated relationships between mercury in different trophic levels in Lake Champlain. We measured inorganic and methyl mercury in water, seston, and two size fractions of zooplankton from 13 sites representing a range of nutrient loading conditions and productivity. Biomass varied significantly across lake segments in all measured ecosystem compartments in response to significant differences in nutrient levels. Local environmental factors such as alkalinity influenced the partitioning of mercury between water and seston. Mercury incorporation into biota was influenced by the biomass and mercury content of different ecosystem strata. Pelagic fish tissue mercury was a function of fish length and the size of the mercury pool associated with large zooplankton. We used these observations to parameterize a model of mercury transfers in the Lake Champlain food web that accounts for ecosystem productivity effects. Simulations using the mercury trophic transfer model suggest that reductions of 25–75% in summertime dissolved eplimnetic total mercury will likely allow fish tissue mercury concentrations to drop to the target level of 0.3 μg g−1 in a 40-cm fish in all lake segments. Changes in nutrient loading and ecosystem productivity in eutrophic segments may delay any response to reduced dissolved mercury and may result in increases in fish tissue mercury.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Arthur Baker, Elizabeth Traver, and Tessa Peart for Laboratory and Field assistance. This research was supported by US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants NA06OAR4600222 and NA09OAR4600162 as part of the Lake Champlain Research Consortium. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and the US Geological Survey provided data and research support. This work was also supported by NIH Grant Number P42 ES007373 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
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Miller, E.K., Chen, C., Kamman, N. et al. Mercury in the pelagic food web of Lake Champlain. Ecotoxicology 21, 705–718 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-011-0829-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-011-0829-4