By ScienceDaily, October 13, 2011
Industrial
chemicals are being transported from the industrialized world to the Arctic via
air and sea currents. Here, the cocktail of environmental toxins is absorbed by
the sea's food chains, of which the polar bear is the top predator.
"The
accumulated industrial chemicals cause diseases in the polar bears which do not
lead to their immediate deaths. On the other hand, the toxins damage the bones
and organs of the polar bears, their immune systems and not least their
reproductive systems. However, the harm suffered by the population of polar
bears in eastern Greenland is not yet fully understood," says Christian
Sonne.
Together with
researchers from LIFE -- the Faculty of Life Sciences and Aarhus University,
Christian Sonne has undertaken the first meta study of ten years of research
conducted up until 2010 into the effects of contaminants on the health of the
species. At the same time, he has analysed tissue and bone samples from about
100 east Greenlandic polar bears.
Christian Sonne and
his colleagues from LIFE -- the Faculty of Life Sciences have previously
conducted controlled experiments on the effects of environmental toxins on
Arctic foxes and Greenlandic sled dogs. Both species top the Arctic food chain
and are genetically and developmentally closely related to the polar bear.
The experiments
showed that the damage seen in the polar bears was also evident in the groups
of Arctic foxes and dogs which were fed environmental toxins, but not in the
control groups.
The title of
Christian Sonne's doctoral thesis is: 'Health effects from long-range
transported contaminants in Arctic top predators: An integrated review based on
studies of polar bears and relevant model species'.
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