Stable isotopes and organochlorines in the food webs of Lakes Baikal and Superior
- Univ. of Maryland System, Solomons, MD (United States). Chesapeake Biological Lab.
- Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States). Dept. of Geological Sciences
- Univ. of Connecticut, Groton, CT (United States)
Quantifying organochlorine biomagnification in aquatic ecosystems is traditionally accomplished by assigning discreet trophic levels, which does not adequately describe feeding relationships except in well defined systems. {delta}{sup 15}N and {delta}{sup 13}C, particularly {delta}{sup 15}N values, measured in aquatic food webs provide additional information on trophic position such that it may be treated as a continuous variable. To evaluate this technique, samples were collected from the pelagic zone of Lake Baikal in August and September, 1993 for organochlorine (PCBs, DDTs, chlordanes and HCHS) and stable isotope ({delta}{sup 13}C and {delta}{sup 15}N) analyzed. These included high volume water samples, seston, net plankton, two species of pelagic sculpin Comephorus dybowskii, C. baikalensis, the omul, (Coregonus autumnalis migratorious), and 9 seal (Phoca siberica) samples of known sex and age. Food web samples from Lake Superior will be collected in June, 1994 to include benthic infauna, sculpins, Mysis and surface phytoplankton and zooplankton. Results from this study will provide a comparison of organochlorine trophodynamics between a system with a predominant pelagic food web (Lake Baikal) to one with substantial benthic/pelagic coupling (Lake Superior).
- OSTI ID:
- 49518
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9410273--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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