Influence of environmental contaminants on bone health measures in wild mink for biomonitoring programs

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Environmental pollutants pose a serious threat to the health and development of wildlife species in Canada, with the potential to have significant effects on their skeletal development. This decrease in bone quality has been shown to put animals at a high risk of fractures, as well as reduced reproductive success. Environment and Climate Change Canada manages numerous environmental monitoring programs, which are used to characterize the effects of pollution on the natural environment. The purpose of the current project is to investigate the relationship between contaminants and bone health in mink, for the purposes of developing an easy and accessible biomarker for tracking environmental effects over time. Mink are an ideal endpoint for biomonitoring, as they are an apex predator with a relatively small home range, that can be collected from trappers. They also live widely across North America, and as such are exposed to a wide range of contaminants. In this work, mink will be sourced from the Athabasca Oil Sands region, a pulp and paper mill area in Quebec, and a low-industry area in New Brunswick, along with a mink farm (to serve as a control). From each specimen, the bone health will be evaluated in the spine, femur (leg bone) and baculum (penile bone) using mechanical testing and medical imaging techniques. The degree of contamination will be characterized through toxicology evaluations on the liver, allowing us to identify specific measures that can be used as biomarkers for certain environmental contaminants. This work supports a high priority governmental environmental monitoring program in the Athabasca Oil Sands region, with applications to other regions of Canada with environmental contamination. The new monitoring programs based on bone biomarkers will be critical tools for tracking changes in the environment and corresponding wildlife health, and also have great importance for Indigenous communities and their land. This study will also inform the development of mitigation strategies to help alleviate any risk posed by industrial activities on our natural environment, to help protect the health of wildlife across Canada.