posted on 2020-03-12, 20:13authored byRenske P. J. Hoondert, Nico W. van den Brink, Martine J. van den Heuvel-Greve, AdM. J. Ragas, A. Jan Hendriks
The occurrence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Arctic
has been of constant concern, as these chemicals cause reproductive
effects and mortality in organisms. The Arctic acts as a chemical
sink, which makes this system an interesting case for bioaccumulation
studies. However, as conducting empirical studies for all Arctic species
and POPs individually is unfeasible, in silico methods
have been developed. Existing bioaccumulation models are predominately
validated for temperate food chains, and do not account for a large
variation in trophic levels. This study applies Monte Carlo simulations
to account for variability in trophic ecology on Svalbard when predicting
bioaccumulation of POPs using the optimal modeling for ecotoxicological
applications (OMEGA) bioaccumulation model. Trophic magnification
factors (TMFs) were calculated accordingly. Comparing our model results
with monitored POP residues in biota revealed that, on average, all
predictions fell within a factor 6 of the monitored POP residues in
biota. Trophic variability did not affect model performance tremendously,
with up to a 25% variability in performance metrics. To our knowledge,
we were the first to include trophic variability in predicting biomagnification
in Arctic ecosystems using a mechanistic biomagnification model. However,
considerable amounts of data are required to quantify the implications
of trophic variability on biomagnification of POPs in Arctic food
webs.