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Title: Quantifying fish otolith mineralogy for trace-element chemistry studies

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [4];  [3]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Washington Univ., St. Louis, MO (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (United States)
  4. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Otoliths are frequently used to infer environmental conditions or fish life history events based on trace-element concentrations. However, otoliths can be comprised of any one or combination of the three most common polymorphs of calcium carbonate - aragonite, calcite, and vaterite - which can affect the ecological interpretation of otolith trace-element results. Previous studies have reported heterogeneous calcium carbonate compositions between left and right otoliths but did not provide quantitative assessments of polymorph abundances. In this study, neutron diffraction and Raman spectroscopy were used to identify and quantify mineralogical compositions of Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha otolith pairs. We found mineralogical compositions frequently differed between otoliths in a pair and accurate calcium carbonate polymorph identification was rarely possible by visual inspection alone. The prevalence of multiple polymorphs in otoliths is not well-understood, and future research should focus on identifying otolith compositions and investigate how variations in mineralogy affect trace-element incorporation and potentially bias environmental interpretations.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1846559
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 12; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (38)

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Related Subjects

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
animal migration
biological techniques
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stable isotope analysis
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