title: The Great Lakes Fisheries Specimen Bank: a Canadian perspective in environmental specimen banking.
abstract: Since 1977 the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has maintained a specimen bank for retrospective chemical analyses. The Great Lakes Fisheries Specimen Bank (GLFSB) is a complementary activity to the department's ongoing Great Lakes Contaminants Surveillance Program that has annually, since 1977, monitored levels of metals and organochlorines in aquatic biota throughout the Canadian Great Lakes. Past activities have focused on defining the effects of long-term frozen storage on the integrity of organochlorine residues in archived biological tissues. Archived samples have been reanalyzed for total PCBs, PCB congeners including co-planar PCBs, dioxin and furan isomers, and 22 toxaphene congeners. More recently, archived samples of predatory fish have been analyzed for stable isotopes of nitrogen (delta 15N) and carbon (delta 13C), as indicators of historical changes in food web dynamics. A catalogue or user-guide has recently been completed describing all information associated with samples stored in the GLFSB.
authors.affiliation: Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kiriluk
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Whittle
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Keir
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Carswell
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Huestis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D002170:Canada; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005398:Fisheries; D006114:Great Lakes Region; D007306:Insecticides / Q000032:analysis; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000032:analysis; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods; D014112:Toxaphene / Q000032:analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D007306:Insecticides; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D014112:Toxaphene; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls