Each year millions of Pacific salmon make a grand journey from the ocean to their freshwater spawning grounds at the end of their life cycles. This migration has rippling effects through food webs and ecosystems along the way.
Whether they decompose or are consumed by other animals, these salmon deliver both nutrients and contaminants they have accumulated in their bodies after spending most of their lives growing at sea. A team of researchers set out to study the transport of these nutrients and contaminants and trends as the salmon community changed over 40 years.
"This research is about the 'bright and dark sides' of Pacific salmon subsidies. We usually study them separately in the context of transport by animals, but nutrients and contaminants go hand-in-hand." The second question they address is how changes in the Pacific salmon community over time have impacted nutrient and contaminant transport.
To understand the significance of these questions, it helps to look at some of the aspects of the lives of different Pacific salmon species. Brandt says that where a species feeds on the food chain , how long it spends in the ocean, and how large it gets, are all important when considering contaminant concentrations. The environmental contaminants included in this study build up in food webs and increase in concentrations from prey to predators, in a process called biomagnification.
Despite these differences, pink salmon transported the largest overall amounts of contaminants, and this comes down to sheer numbers, says Brandt, Studying nutrients and contaminants together gives powerful insight into the environmental impacts of migratory species like salmon.
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