posted on 2018-02-04, 00:00authored byMarisa L. Trego, Eunha Hoh, Nicholas M. Kellar, Sara Meszaros, Michelle N. Robbins, Nathan G. Dodder, Andrew Whitehead, Rebecca L. Lewison
While environmental
pollutants have been associated with changes
in endocrine health in cetaceans, efforts to link contaminant exposure
with hormones have largely been limited to a list of known, targeted
contaminants, overlooking minimally characterized or unknown compounds
of emerging concern. To address this gap, we analyzed a suite of potential
endocrine disrupting halogenated organic compounds (HOCs) in blubber
from 16 male short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) with known maturity status collected from fishery bycatch in the
Southern California Bight. We employed a suspect screening mass spectrometry-based
method to investigate a wide range of HOCs that were previously observed
in cetaceans from the same region. Potential endocrine effects were
assessed through the measurement of blubber testosterone. We detected
167 HOCs, including 81 with known anthropogenic sources, 49 of unknown
origin, and 37 with known natural sources. The sum of 11 anthropogenic
and 4 unknown HOC classes were negatively correlated with blubber
testosterone. Evidence suggests that elevated anthropogenic HOC load
contributes to impaired testosterone production in mature male D. delphis. The application of this integrative analytical
approach to cetacean contaminant analysis allows for inference of
the biological consequences of accumulation of HOCs and prioritization
of compounds for future environmental toxicology research.