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Teeth as biomonitors of soft tissue mercury concentrations in beluga, Delphinapterus leucas
Author(s) -
Outridge Peter M.,
Wagemann Rudolph,
McNeely Roger
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
environmental toxicology and chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1552-8618
pISSN - 0730-7268
DOI - 10.1002/etc.5620190607
Subject(s) - beluga , beluga whale , leucas , mercury (programming language) , cementum , molar , chemistry , wet weight , liver tissue , environmental chemistry , biology , dentistry , dentin , endocrinology , fishery , ecology , medicine , arctic , computer science , programming language , paleontology
This paper reports relationships between bulk Hg concentrations in the tooth cementum and soft tssues of fee‐living beluga ( Delphinapterus leucas ). Total Hg levels were determined in slivers of cementum using a solid‐sample Hg analyzer, a recent advance in Hg analysis that avoids acid predigestion. Tooth Hg concentrations ranged up to about 350 ng/g dry weight and were significantly correlated with Hg levels in kidneys, liver, muscle, and muktuk (skin) and with the age of the animals. The Hg/Se ratio in liver, the organ with the highest Hg concentrations, may have been an important determinant of tooth Hg. At hepatic Hg/Se molar ratios ≥0.6, tooth Hg increased steeply, suggesting that Hg in teeth may reflect physiologically available Hg that was not bound in the liver and that was circulating in the bloodstream. This Hg/Se ratio was exceeded in most beluga aged ≥20 years. The results indicate that teeth can be used as biomonitors to reconstruct temporal and geographic trends in the soft tissue Hg concentrations of beluga, provided that the age structures of the different populations are known.