Description

This project is part of the Northern Contaminants Program core monitoring and looks at contaminant levels in landlocked Arctic char from lakes in Nunavut over time. Landlocked char are the only top predators in most Canadian high Arctic lakes and, therefore, can serve as a sentinel species for monitoring changes in contaminants. The project has information on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury and other elements in char from lakes near the community of Resolute Bay, Nunavut and for Lake Hazen in Quttinirpaaq National Park on Ellesmere Island spanning up to 30 years. Results to date show that mercury concentrations in char from most of the study lakes have remained steady or have declined over the past ~10 years. Concentrations of most POPs are also declining steadily, except for total chlorobenzenes which were found to be increasing since the mid-2000s. This increase, which is mainly due to hexachlorobenzene, has also been observed in other studies of seabirds and ringed seals and suggests that there are still major emissions of chlorobenzenes despite its phase out globally under the Stockholm Convention. This study is on-going and would not be possible without collaboration with the community of Resolute Bay, Nunavut where residents participate in fish collections each year. Results are regularly communicated with the community through the local Hunters and Trappers Association and through community meetings. Supplemental Information The Northern Contaminants Program (NCP, http://www.science.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_7A463DBA.html) was established in 1991 in response to concerns about human exposure to elevated levels of contaminants in wildlife species that are important to the traditional diets of northern Aboriginal peoples. Early studies found a wide variety of substances, many of which had no Arctic or Canadian sources, but which were, nevertheless, reaching unexpectedly high levels in the Arctic ecosystem. The Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN) https://www.ccin.ca and the Polar Data Catalogue (PDC) https://polardata.ca have been developed over the past two decades through collaborative partnerships between the University of Waterloo and numerous government, university, and private organizations to provide the data and information management infrastructure for the Canadian cryospheric community. The PDC is one of Canada’s primary online sources for data and information about the Arctic and is Canada's National Antarctica Data Centre. Polar Data Catalogue Canadian Cryospheric Information Network Metadata Record: https://www.polardata.ca/pdcsearch/PDCSearch.jsp?doi_id=914 Supporting Projects: Northern Contaminants Program (NCP)

Resources

Name	Format	Description	Link
View ECCC Data Mart (English)	HTML		https://data-donnees.ec.gc.ca/data/substances/monitor/contaminant-and-biological-data-on-landlocked-arctic-char/mercury-in-landlocked-arctic-char/
View ECCC Data Mart (French)	HTML		https://data-donnees.ec.gc.ca/data/substances/monitor/contaminant-and-biological-data-on-landlocked-arctic-char/mercury-in-landlocked-arctic-char/?lang=fr
NCP_LandlockedArcticChar_Mercury_Concentration_EN_FR.csv	CSV		https://data-donnees.ec.gc.ca/data/substances/monitor/contaminant-and-biological-data-on-landlocked-arctic-char/mercury-in-landlocked-arctic-char/NCP_LandlockedArcticChar_Mercury_Concentration_EN_FR.csv
Scientific Publication - Mercury concentrations in landlocked Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) from the Canadian Arctic. Part I: Insights from trophic relationships in 18 lakes	HTML		https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.95
Scientific Publication - Mercury concentrations in landlocked Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) from the Canadian Arctic. Part II: Influence of lake biotic and abiotic characteristics on geographic trends in 27 populations	HTML		https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.96
Scientific publication - Mercury at the top of the world: A 31-year record of mercury in Arctic char in the largest High Arctic lake, linked to atmospheric mercury concentrations and climate oscillations	HTML		https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122466
Scientific Publication - Factors affecting biotic mercury concentrations and biomagnification through lake food webs in the Canadian high Arctic	HTML		https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.04.133
Scientific Publication - Mercury in freshwater ecosystems of the Canadian Arctic: Recent advances on its cycling and fate	HTML		https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.05.151
Scientific Publication - Temporal trends of mercury, cesium, potassium, selenium, and thallium in arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) from Lake Hazen, Nunavut, Canada: Effects of trophic position, size, and age	HTML		https://doi.org/10.1897/08-054.1
Scientific Publication - Variations in Stable Isotope Fractionation of Hg in Food Webs of Arctic Lakes	HTML		https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es901771r

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