Heavy metals in molted fur of the southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina

SANTIAGO ANDRADE, ALEJANDRO R. CARLINI, CRISTIAN VODOPIVEZ, SEBASTIAN POLJAK

MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN

Elsevier

Año: 2007 vol. 54 p. 602 - 625

0025-326X

Heavy metals in molted fur of the southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina   Santiago Andrade a,*, Alejandro R. Carlini b, Cristian Vodopivez c, Sebastian Poljak b a Departamento de Ecología, Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Biodiversity, Facultad de Ciencias Biologicas, Pontifcia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Alameda 340, Santiago, Chile b Departamento de Ciencias Biologicas, Instituto Anta´ rtico Argentino, Cerrito 1248, Buenos Aires, Argentina c Area de Quimica Ambiental, Instituto Antartico Argentino, Cerrito 1248, Buenos Aires, Argentina     Heavy metal concentrations in marine mammals have been reported for di.erent environments, including the Baltic Sea (Szefer et al., 2002), Mediterranean Sea (Cardellicchio et al., 2002), North and South Atlantic Oceans (Marcovecchio et al., 1994; Das et al., 2003) and the Polar Regions (de Moreno et al., 1997; Fisk et al., 2005). In the case of the Antarctic (Yamamoto et al., 1987; Szefer et al., 1994; de Moreno et al., 1997), the available studies have important limitations. Marine mammals are legally protected by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991), which limits to a great degree the ability of researchers to make reliable determinations of element contents in di.erent organs and tissues of marine mammals. In spite of the problems associated in working with internal tissues, limited attention has been paid to non-destructive protocols using hair, skin or fur samples, which provide a simpler and harmless way of assessing the level of heavy metals in marine mammals (Fossi and Marsili, 1997). The southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina is a large deep-diving, top-level predator that spends more than 80% of its life-cycle at sea (Hindell et al., 1991). This species forages throughout most of the Southern Ocean, travels large distances from land, and consumes large quantities of squid and .sh (Daneri and Carlini, 2002; Bradshaw et al., 2003). As with other species of pinnipeds, M. leonine molts annually, providing a periodic source of material for analysis without having to disturb or manipulate the animals. Furthermore, mammal fur and hairs are commonly used as target tissues to assess levels of a wide diversity of substances, including metals (Schramm, 1997; Rashed and Soltan, 2005). However, this approach has been mainly used in terrestrial mammals, where hair is a good monitoring tool as it re.ects the content of heavy metals in the forage and soil (Rashed and Soltan, 2005). In this context, and given the lack of information on heavy metals in the southern elephant seal, concentrations of Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb and Zn were determined in molted fur samples of M. leonina from the South Shetland Islands. The aim of the study was to provide a baseline of heavy metals at the top level of the Antarctic marine food web, and to assess the reliability of molted fur samples as a harmless sampling tool for heavy metals assessment in seals.