title: Comparing temporal trends of organochlorines in guillemot eggs and Baltic herring: advantages and disadvantage for selecting sentinel species for environmental monitoring.
abstract: Within Europe, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is aimed at addressing the chemical status and quality of the marine environment. One of the main goals is to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) in the marine environment. Environmental monitoring of biota e.g., Baltic herring and guillemot eggs, is conducted annually in Sweden to follow temporal changes in environmental contaminants. To determine the suitability of guillemot eggs as a sentinel species for investigating GES, we compared temporal trends of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs) in these two species from single sampling sites within Sweden. Lipid content from guillemot eggs was consistently high and stable (yearly mean for >40 years, ∼12%) compared to that of herring (yearly mean for >20 years, ∼3%). A significant decreasing trend of ΣPCDD/F in TEQ WHO1998 was observed in guillemot eggs, but no trend was seen in herring. CB118 significantly decreased in both species, but in the last 10 years this decrease was not significant in herring. A number of advantages, such as high lipid content in the egg and a low coefficient of variation make guillemot suitable as a sentinel species. The advantages and disadvantages of using either guillemot eggs or Baltic herring are compared.
authors.affiliation: Department of Contaminant Research, Swedish Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 50 007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: Aroha.Miller@ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Aroha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Contaminant Research, Swedish Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 50 007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Nyberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Contaminant Research, Swedish Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 50 007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Danielsson
authors.affiliation: Department of Contaminant Research, Swedish Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 50 007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Faxneld
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Umeå University, SE-90187 Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Haglund
authors.affiliation: Department of Contaminant Research, Swedish Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 50 007, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bignert
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001572:Benzofurans / Q000378:metabolism; D046091:Charadriiformes / Q000378:metabolism*; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D004147:Dioxins / Q000378:metabolism; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005399:Fishes / Q000378:metabolism*; D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated / Q000378:metabolism*; D010063:Ovum / Q000378:metabolism; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000378:metabolism; D013548:Sweden; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001572:Benzofurans; D004147:Dioxins; D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls
keywords: Baltic Sea; Clupea harengus; Dioxins; Ecotoxicology; Guillemot eggs; Herring; Pollution monitoring; Seabirds; Sentinel species; Uria aalge