Anders Bjørgesæter

Deriving site‐specific sediment quality guidelines for Hong Kong marine environments using field‐based species sensitivity distributions

Field data of benthic communities and contaminant loadings in marine sediments measured in parallel can be used to derive sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) using a field-based species sensitivity distribution (f-SSD) approach. Recently, SQGs have been successfully derived from f-SSDs for the Norwegian continental shelf with an extensive survey (>1 million km(2)) and a large data set (1,902 sampling stations with 1,944 species). The present study examined the practicality of this approach in deriving SQGs for a much smaller geographical area, namely, the marine environment of Hong Kong (sea area: 1,651 km(2)), making use of databases of the government of Hong Kong special administrative region. As the construction of f-SSDs requires the use of a collection of responses from individual species to a chemical gradient in sediment, data screening criteria on the minimum abundance of the species were evaluated and optimized to ensure sufficient statistical power for estimating these responses. Sediment quality guidelines were derived for nine trace metals, total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and total polychlorinated biphenyls and compared with current SQGs in developed countries. The community-adjusted hazardous concentrations of 5% and 10% of the f-SSDs were adopted to represent the threshold effects level (TEL) and predicted effects level (PEL), respectively. The TELs derived from this f-SSD approach compares favorably with current SQGs, while the derived PELs were generally lower than the current SQGs, indicating that they are more protective. The f-SSDs can be directly utilized for probabilistic risk assessment, while the field-based SQGs can be used as site-specific guidelines or integrated into current SQGs. Our results suggest that the f-SSD approach can also be applicable to small areas such as Hong Kong.

Setting sediment quality guidelines: a simple yet effective method.

Deriving sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) for marine sediments is a difficult task. It will often be a trade off between reproducibility and relevance. One of the fundamental questions in ecotoxicology is to decide what one should measure to detect response in ecosystems exposed to human disturbance. In this paper we use field data to estimate threshold levels eliciting effects on soft bottom macrobenthos collected at different sediment types and depths on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and test these against natural levels occurring levels in reference conditions. SQGs are presented from multivariate analyses based on 121 gradients (represented with Ba, THC, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn) incorporating more than 2000 species. Clear clusters with slightly disturbed communities related to contamination loadings were evident in 35% of the gradients. We found large variations in naturally occurring contamination concentrations and in the threshold levels electing effects on the fauna at different sediment types and depths. For example, an increase in depth of only 100 m can triple the Cu and Zn concentrations that elicit effects. Lowest background and threshold levels were found in shallow, sandy sediment. Our results suggest that current SQGs are too high. We hypothesised that setting a SQG of 4-times background concentrations will give sufficient protection for the fauna from metal contamination. The overall background concentration eliciting effects on metal was 3.6x.

Geographic variation and acoustic structure of the underwater vocalization of harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) in Norway, Sweden and Scotland

The male harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) produces broadband nonharmonic vocalizations underwater during the breeding season. In total, 120 vocalizations from six colonies were analyzed to provide a description of the acoustic structure and for the presence of geographic variation. The complex harbor seal vocalizations may be described by how the frequency bandwidth varies over time. An algorithm that identifies the boundaries between noise and signal from digital spectrograms was developed in order to extract a frequency bandwidth contour. The contours were used as inputs for multivariate analysis. The vocalizations sound types (e.g., pulsed sound, whistle, and broadband nonharmonic sound) were determined by comparing the vocalizations spectrographic representations with sound waves produced by known sound sources. Comparison between colonies revealed differences in the frequency contours, as well as some geographical variation in use of sound types. The vocal differences may reflect a limited exchange of individuals between the six colonies due to long distances and strong site fidelity. Geographically different vocal repertoires have potential for identifying discrete breeding colonies of harbor seals, but more information is needed on the nature and extent of early movements of young, the degree of learning, and the stability of the vocal repertoire. A characteristic feature of many vocalizations in this study was the presence of tonal-like introductory phrases that fit into the categories pulsed sound and whistles. The functions of these phrases are unknown but may be important in distance perception and localization of the sound source. The potential behavioral consequences of the observed variability may be indicative of adaptations to different environmental properties influencing determination of distance and direction and plausible different male mating tactics.

Deriving field-based sediment quality guidelines from the relationship between species density and contaminant level using a novel nonparametric empirical Bayesian approach

This paper describes a novel statistical approach to derive ecologically relevant sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) from field data using a nonparametric empirical Bayesian method (NEBM). We made use of the Norwegian Oil Industrial Association database and extracted concurrently obtained data on species density and contaminant levels in sediment samples collected between 1996 and 2001. In brief, effect concentrations (ECs) of each installation (i.e., oil platform) at a given reduction in species density were firstly derived by fitting a logistic-type regression function to the relationship between the species density and the corresponding concentration of a chemical of concern. The estimated ECs were further improved by the NEBM which incorporated information from other installations. The distribution of these improved ECs from all installations was determined nonparametrically by the kernel method, and then used to determine the hazardous concentration (HC) which can be directly linked to the species loss (or the species being protected) in the sediment. This method also enables an accurate estimation of the lower confidence limit of the HC, even when the number of observations was small. To illustrate the effectiveness of this novel technique, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, lead, tetrahydrocannabinol, and zinc were chosen as example contaminants. This novel approach can generate ecologically sound SQGs for environmental risk assessment and cost-effectiveness analysis in sediment remediation or mud disposal projects, since sediment quality is closely linked to species density.