Effects of life history variation on vertical transfer of toxicants in marine mammals

A review of bioenergetic modelling for marine mammal populations

Bioenergetic models describe the processes through which animals acquire energy from resources in the environment and allocate it to different life history functions. They capture some of the fundamental mechanisms regulating individuals, populations and ecosystems and have thus been used in a wide variety of theoretical and applied contexts. Here, I review the development of bioenergetic models for marine mammals and their application to management and conservation. For these long-lived, wide-ranging species, bioenergetic approaches were initially used to assess the energy requirements and prey consumption of individuals and populations. Increasingly, models are developed to describe the dynamics of energy intake and allocation and predict how resulting body reserves, vital rates and population dynamics might change as external conditions vary. The building blocks required to develop such models include estimates of intake rate, maintenance costs, growth patterns, energy storage and the dynamics of gestation and lactation, as well as rules for prioritizing allocation. I describe how these components have been parameterized for marine mammals and highlight critical research gaps. Large variation exists among available analytical approaches, reflecting the large range of life histories, management needs and data availability across studies. Flexibility in modelling strategy has supported tailored applications to specific case studies but has resulted in limited generality. Despite the many empirical and theoretical uncertainties that remain, bioenergetic models can be used to predict individual and population responses to environmental change and other anthropogenic impacts, thus providing powerful tools to inform effective management and conservation.

Building and Applying Quantitative Adverse Outcome Pathway Models for Chemical Hazard and Risk Assessment

An important goal in toxicology is the development of new ways to increase the speed, accuracy, and applicability of chemical hazard and risk assessment approaches. A promising route is the integration of in vitro assays with biological pathway information. We examined how the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) framework can be used to develop pathway-based quantitative models useful for regulatory chemical safety assessment. By using AOPs as initial conceptual models and the AOP knowledge base as a source of data on key event relationships, different methods can be applied to develop computational quantitative AOP models (qAOPs) relevant for decision making. A qAOP model may not necessarily have the same structure as the AOP it is based on. Useful AOP modeling methods range from statistical, Bayesian networks, regression, and ordinary differential equations to individual-based models and should be chosen according to the questions being asked and the data available. We discuss the need for toxicokinetic models to provide linkages between exposure and qAOPs, to extrapolate from in vitro to in vivo, and to extrapolate across species. Finally, we identify best practices for modeling and model building and the necessity for transparent and comprehensive documentation to gain confidence in the use of qAOP models and ultimately their use in regulatory applications. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;38:1850-1865. © 2019 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of SETAC.

Modeling Population-Level Consequences of Polychlorinated Biphenyl Exposure in East Greenland Polar Bears

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can cause endocrine disruption, cancer, immunosuppression, or reproductive failure in animals. We used an individual-based model to explore whether and how PCB-associated reproductive failure could affect the dynamics of a hypothetical polar bear (Ursus maritimus) population exposed to PCBs to the same degree as the East Greenland subpopulation. Dose-response data from experimental studies on a surrogate species, the mink (Mustela vision), were used in the absence of similar data for polar bears. Two alternative types of reproductive failure in relation to maternal sum-PCB concentrations were considered: increased abortion rate and increased cub mortality. We found that the quantitative impact of PCB-induced reproductive failure on population growth rate depended largely on the actual type of reproductive failure involved. Critical potencies of the dose-response relationship for decreasing the population growth rate were established for both modeled types of reproductive failure. Comparing the model predictions of the age-dependent trend of sum-PCBs concentrations in females with actual field measurements from East Greenland indicated that it was unlikely that PCB exposure caused a high incidence of abortions in the subpopulation. However, on the basis of this analysis, it could not be excluded that PCB exposure contributes to higher cub mortality. Our results highlight the necessity for further research on the possible influence of PCBs on polar bear reproduction regarding their physiological pathway. This includes determining the exact cause of reproductive failure, i.e., in utero exposure versus lactational exposure of offspring; the timing of offspring death; and establishing the most relevant reference metrics for the dose-response relationship.

The effect of organohalogen contaminants on western Steller sea lion survival and movement in the Russian Far East

The western stock of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) have experienced dramatic declines since the 1960s, particularly in the western Alaskan and Asian portions, which have continued to decline or stabilized at low levels. Multiple causes for this decline have been proposed and may include anthropogenic contamination from organohalogen contaminants (OCs). These include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), which have not been ruled out as a potential cause for the lack of recovery. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of OCs on survival and movement probabilities estimated in program MARK using resighting data collected from 2003 to 2009. PCBs and DDTs were measured in whole blood from 136 (74 males and 62 females) individually marked, free-ranging pups from four Russian Far East rookeries. The mean concentration of ∑PCB and ∑DDT was 4.25±5.12 and 3.22±4.28 ng g(-1) ww (n=136), respectively, and the average ∑PCB and ∑DDT concentration for those above the aggregate mean (n=44) was 9.25±6.55 and 7.65±5.21 ng g(-1) ww, and those below the aggregate mean (n=92) the concentration was 1.86±0.89 and 1.11±0.65 ng g(-1) ww, respectively. The lowest estimated probabilities of survival occurred in the first year, ranging from 38% to 74%, but increased for ages 1-9, ranging from 82% to 94%. The greatest movement occurred from Medny Island west toward the Kamchatka Peninsula (33%) and to Bering Island (18%), and low movement estimates for other natal rookeries was largely due to minimal resighting effort. The estimated probabilities of resighting varied by location (48%-87%), but had greater precision than survival or movement parameters. Survival and movement were most affected by age and location rather than OCs.

A model to resolve organochlorine pharmacokinetics in migrating humpback whales

Humpback whales are iconic mammals at the top of the Antarctic food chain. Their large reserves of lipid-rich tissues such as blubber predispose them to accumulation of lipophilic contaminants throughout their lifetime. Changes in the volume and distribution of lipids in humpback whales, particularly during migration, could play an important role in the pharmacokinetics of lipophilic contaminants such as the organochlorine pesticide hexachlorobenzene (HCB). Previous models have examined constant feeding and nonmigratory scenarios. In the present study, the authors develop a novel heuristic model to investigate HCB dynamics in a humpback whale and its environment by coupling an ecosystem nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton-detritus (NPZD) model, a dynamic energy budget (DEB) model, and a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model. The model takes into account the seasonal feeding pattern of whales, their energy requirements, and fluctuating contaminant burdens in the supporting plankton food chain. It is applied to a male whale from weaning to maturity, spanning 20 migration and feeding cycles. The model is initialized with environmental HCB burdens similar to those measured in the Southern Ocean and predicts blubber HCB concentrations consistent with empirical concentrations observed in a southern hemisphere population of male, migrating humpback whales. Results show for the first time some important details of the relationship between energy budgets and organochlorine pharmacokinetics.

Transfer of PBDEs and chlorinated POPs from mother to pup during lactation in harp seals Phoca groenlandica

Seven mother-pup pairs of harp seal (Phoca groenlandica) were sampled during the lactation season near Magdalen Islands, QC, Canada. The blubber and serum of pups and mothers as well as the milk of mothers were analyzed for polybrominated diphenyl ethers and several chlorinated persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to evaluate their transfer prior to weaning. Principal component analysis demonstrated significant variations in contaminant distribution patterns between seal tissues of mothers and pups. The selectivity in the transfer of POPs between mothers and pups appeared mainly driven by their log K(ow) (octanol/water partition coefficient). The most selective transfer step for the POPs examined occurred between the blubber and the serum of the mother. A novel approach to examine temporal changes of POP concentrations in tissues of seals which take into account the contamination of mothers was developed. A general decrease of POP concentrations in pup tissues throughout lactation may suggest a growth dilution. A concomitant rise of POP concentrations was observed in maternal blubber and serum and in milk as lactation progresses. The intensive offloading of contaminants via lactation constitutes a major but selective excretory route for reproductive female seals and also a significant route of exposure for suckling pup seals.

Dynamic energy budget theory and population ecology: lessons from Daphnia

Dynamic energy budget (DEB) theory offers a perspective on population ecology whose starting point is energy utilization by, and homeostasis within, individual organisms. It is natural to ask what it adds to the existing large body of individual-based ecological theory. We approach this question pragmatically--through detailed study of the individual physiology and population dynamics of the zooplankter Daphnia and its algal food. Standard DEB theory uses several state variables to characterize the state of an individual organism, thereby making the transition to population dynamics technically challenging, while ecologists demand maximally simple models that can be used in multi-scale modelling. We demonstrate that simpler representations of individual bioenergetics with a single state variable (size), and two life stages (juveniles and adults), contain sufficient detail on mass and energy budgets to yield good fits to data on growth, maturation and reproduction of individual Daphnia in response to food availability. The same simple representations of bioenergetics describe some features of Daphnia mortality, including enhanced mortality at low food that is not explicitly incorporated in the standard DEB model. Size-structured, population models incorporating this additional mortality component resolve some long-standing questions on stability and population cycles in Daphnia. We conclude that a bioenergetic model serving solely as a 'regression' connecting organismal performance to the history of its environment can rest on simpler representations than those of standard DEB. But there are associated costs with such pragmatism, notably loss of connection to theory describing interspecific variation in physiological rates. The latter is an important issue, as the type of detailed study reported here can only be performed for a handful of species.