Evidence that Pacific tuna mercury levels are driven by marine methylmercury production and anthropogenic inputs.
Animals
Asia
Ecology
Environmental Monitoring
/ methods
Europe
Food Chain
Geologic Sediments
/ chemistry
Humans
Mercury
/ analysis
Methylation
Methylmercury Compounds
/ analysis
Models, Theoretical
North America
Pacific Ocean
Seafood
Seawater
Tuna
Water Pollutants
Water Pollutants, Chemical
/ analysis
atmospheric inputs
biogeochemistry
methylmercury
skipjack tuna
spatial modeling
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ISSN: 1091-6490
Titre abrégé: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7505876
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
11 01 2022
11 01 2022
Historique:
accepted:
02
11
2021
entrez:
5
1
2022
pubmed:
6
1
2022
medline:
22
2
2022
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Pacific Ocean tuna is among the most-consumed seafood products but contains relatively high levels of the neurotoxin methylmercury. Limited observations suggest tuna mercury levels vary in space and time, yet the drivers are not well understood. Here, we map mercury concentrations in skipjack tuna across the Pacific Ocean and build generalized additive models to quantify the anthropogenic, ecological, and biogeochemical drivers. Skipjack mercury levels display a fivefold spatial gradient, with maximum concentrations in the northwest near Asia, intermediate values in the east, and the lowest levels in the west, southwest, and central Pacific. Large spatial differences can be explained by the depth of the seawater methylmercury peak near low-oxygen zones, leading to enhanced tuna mercury concentrations in regions where oxygen depletion is shallow. Despite this natural biogeochemical control, the mercury hotspot in tuna caught near Asia is explained by elevated atmospheric mercury concentrations and/or mercury river inputs to the coastal shelf. While we cannot ignore the legacy mercury contribution from other regions to the Pacific Ocean (e.g., North America and Europe), our results suggest that recent anthropogenic mercury release, which is currently largest in Asia, contributes directly to present-day human mercury exposure.
Identifiants
pubmed: 34983875
pii: 2113032119
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2113032119
pmc: PMC8764691
pii:
doi:
Substances chimiques
Methylmercury Compounds
0
Water Pollutants
0
Water Pollutants, Chemical
0
Mercury
FXS1BY2PGL
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors declare no competing interest.
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