Wandering Albatrosses Document Latitudinal Variations in the Transfer of Persistent Organic Pollutants and Mercury to Southern Ocean Predators

Alice Carravieri (1, 2) , Paco Bustamante (1) , Sabrina Tartu (2) , Alizée Meillere (2) , Pierre Labadie (3, 4) , Hélène Budzinski (4, 3) , Laurent Peluhet (3, 4) , Christophe Barbraud (2) , Henri Weimerskirch (2) , Olivier Chastel (2) , Yves Cherel (2)

1 LIENSs - LIttoral ENvironnement et Sociétés
2 CEBC - Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372
3 EPOC - Environnements et Paléoenvironnements OCéaniques
4 LPTC - Laboratoire de Physico -& Toxico Chimie des systèmes naturels

Top marine predators are effective tools to monitor bioaccumulative contaminants in remote oceanic environments. Here, we used the wide-ranging wandering albatross Diomedea exulans to investigate potential geographical variations of contaminant transfer to predators in the Southern Ocean. Blood concentrations of 19 persistent organic pollutants and 14 trace elements were measured in a large number of individuals (N = 180) of known age, sex and breeding status from the subantarctic Crozet Islands. Wandering albatrosses were exposed to a wide range of contaminants, with notably high blood mercury concentrations. Contaminant burden was markedly influenced by latitudinal foraging habitats (inferred from blood δ13C values), with individuals feeding in warmer subtropical waters having lower concentrations of pesticides, but higher concentrations of mercury, than those feeding in colder subantarctic waters. Sexual differences in contaminant burden seemed to be driven by gender specialization in feeding habitats, rather than physiological characteristics, with females foraging further north than males. Other individual traits, such as adult age and reproductive status, had little effect on blood contaminant concentrations. Our study provides further evidence of the critical role of global distillation on organic contaminant exposure to Southern Ocean avian predators. In addition, we document an unexpected high transfer of mercury to predators in subtropical waters, which merits further investigation.

Mots clés: Procellariiformes; POPs; Mercury; Cadmium; Antarctica; Stable isotopes

Domaines: Ecotoxicologie

Alice Carravieri, Paco Bustamante, Sabrina Tartu, Alizée Meillere, Pierre Labadie, et al.. Wandering Albatrosses Document Latitudinal Variations in the Transfer of Persistent Organic Pollutants and Mercury to Southern Ocean Predators. Environmental Science and Technology, 2014, 48 (24), pp.14746-14755. ⟨10.1021/es504601m⟩. ⟨hal-02334596⟩