Correlation of Mercury Occurrence with Age, Elemental Composition, and Life History in Sea-Run Food Fish from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago's Lower Northwest Passage.

As mercury emissions continue and climate-mediated permafrost thaw increases the burden of this contaminant in northern waters, Inuit from a Northwest passage community in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago pressed for an assessment of their subsistence catches. Sea-run salmonids ( = 537) comprising Arctic char (), lake trout (), lake whitefish (), and cisco () were analyzed for muscle mercury. Methylmercury is a neurotoxin and bioaccumulated with fish age, but other factors including selenium and other elements, diet and trophic level as assessed by stable isotopes of nitrogen (δN) and carbon (δC), as well as growth rate, condition, and geographic origin, also contributed depending on the species, even though all the fish shared a similar anadromous or sea-run life history.