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| Jooste, E.; Nielsen, C.K.; Chen, D. | |
| Using terrestrial mammalian carnivores for global contaminant monitoring | |
| 2014 Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (10): 312-314 | |
Contaminant monitoring and detection of toxic substances in the environment is essential to the health of humans and wildlife. Thus, bioindicators are widely used to understand spatial and temporal trends of environmental contaminants and their risks to ecosystems. Although aquatic mammals have been widely used as bioindicators, terrestrial mammalian species are much less used. Hence, knowledge about the distribution of environmental contaminants in terrestrial ecosystems remains relatively limited. This has been, and still remains, a major information gap in contaminant research. Many recommendations have been made regarding characteristics that biological indicators may possess, including widespread distribution, high trophic status, sufficient sampling numbers, restricted home range, and a well-known biology. Here, we contend that terrestrial mammalian carnivores can be used as efficient bioindicators for monitoring contaminants in terrestrial ecosystems. Because of the presence of multiple stressors in the environment, we do not propose using these carnivores to monitor the physiological effects of contaminants, but rather use them to detect the presence and quantify the bioaccumulation and biomagnification of contaminants on a global scale. |
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