Resident Fishes Display Elevated Organic Pollutants in Salmon Spawning Streams of the Great Lakes

Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) can transport bioaccumulated organic pollutants to stream ecosystems where they spawn and die. We quantified PCBs, DDE, and PBDEs in resident fishes from 13 Great Lakes tributaries to assess biotransport of pollutants associated with introduced Pacific salmon. Resident fishes sampled from salmon spawning reaches had higher mean pollutant concentrations than those from upstream reaches lacking salmon (93.5 and 4.1 μg·kg–1 [PCB], 24.0 and 3.1 μg·kg–1 [DDE], 8.5 and 1.0 μg·kg–1 [PBDE], respectively), but differences varied substantially among lake basins. In Lake Michigan tributaries, PCB concentrations in resident fishes from salmon reaches were over four times higher than those from salmon reaches in Lake Huron and over 30 times higher than those from Lake Superior. Moreover, resident fish pollutant concentrations were better explained by pollutant inputs from salmon (μg·m–2; R 2 = 0.76 [PCB], 0.64 [DDE], 0.64 [PBDE]) than by land development/agriculture, watershed area, resident fish species, body length, or lipid content. These results suggest that pollutant dispersal to stream ecosystems via biotransport is an often overlooked consequence of salmon stocking and historical food web contamination in the Great Lakes. Our findings have implications for Great Lakes management, including dam removal and wildlife conservation.