Association between the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and levels of legacy persistent organic pollutants measured in Alaskan seabird eggs from 1999 to 2010 Público

Abstract

Legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are predicted to remobilize in the environment due to warming global temperatures, underscoring the importance of examining the relationship between large-scale climate oscillations and the ecotoxicology of POPs. In this paper, we model the association between the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a measure of Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) variability, and levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) measured in sympatric seabird eggs collected from the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea between 1999 and 2010. The warm and cool phases of the ENSO predicted contaminant loads in both common murre and thick-billed murre eggs. We found an inverse pattern of bioaccumulation between the two species, likely due to differences in foraging behavior. Relative contribution of individual congeners to total PCBs in the sample predicted the magnitude of association between ENSO and PCB levels measured the eggs of both species. The results of this study suggest that the ENSO may be an important determinant of POP ecotoxicology in Alaska and should be considered in pollutant monitoring and human exposure assessments.

Table of Contents

Introduction. 1

Materials. 3

Contaminant Data. 3

Climate Data. 5

Methods. 6

Data Management. 6

Log-linear Spline Regression. 7

Model Specification. 8

Meta-Regression. 8

Sensitivity Analysis. 9

Results. 9

Thick-billed Murres. 9

Common Murres. 11

Meta-Regression. 12

Discussion. 13

Limitations. 15

Conclusions. 15

References. 17

Tables and Figures. 23

Table 1. 23

Table 2. 24

Table 3. 25

Table 4. 26

Figure 1. 27

Figure 2. 28

Figure 3. 29

Figure 4. 30

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Environmental Health
Degree	M.P.H.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Environmental Health Health Sciences, Toxicology
Palavra-chave	ENSO ecotoxicology organochlorine POPs Alaska climate
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Salamova, Amina, Emory University
Committee Members	Kalia, Vrinda, Columbia University Gribble, Matthew, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Partnering Agencies	US (Federal) agency other than CDC University, college or education institution (other than Emory)

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