Long-term data for contaminants in fish, mussels, and bird eggs from the Baltic Sea, 1968 – 2021

Yosr Ammar, Martin Sköld, Suzanne Faxneld, Anne L. Soerensen

This dataset contains a curated version of contaminant concentrations collected within the Swedish National Monitoring Programme for Contaminants in Marine Biota.

The monitoring programme, funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, covers four fish species (Clupea harengus, Gadus morhua, Perca fluviatilis, Zoarces viviparous), one bivalve (Mytilus edulis), and eggs of three bird species (Uria aalge, Sterna hirundo, Haematopus ostralegus).

The programme started in 1978, but the oldest record in this dataset is from 1968 for guillemot eggs. Nowadays it includes 27 stations along the Swedish marine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), with 36 biota time series analysed for more than 100 contaminants.

Citation

Yosr Ammar, Martin Sköld, Suzanne Faxneld, Anne L. Soerensen (2024) Long-term data for contaminants in fish, mussels, and bird eggs from the Baltic Sea, 1968 – 2021. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/ammar-2024-contaminant-monitoring-1

References

Ammar, Y., Faxneld, S., Sköld, M., & Soerensen, A. L. (2024). Long-term dataset for contaminants in fish, mussels, and bird eggs from the Baltic Sea. Scientific Data, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03216-0

Data description

The dataset contains 5 tab delimited .tsv files.

MCoM.csv contains information on contaminants in a long format.

• specimen_ID: Unique identifier for each specimen or homogenate
• year: Sampling year presented in the format yyyy
• date: Sampling date presented in the format yyyy-mm-dd
• species: Full scientific name
• species_EN: Common English name of the species
• class: Species class: “Fish”, “Bird”, “Bivalve”
• number_individuals: The number of specimens in the homogenate; else is 1
• sample_ID: Describes the sample sent to the laboratories for specific analysis and is a merger between the specimen_ID, the organ and the analytical method
• substance_group: “Metals”, “PFAS”, “PCBs”, “Dioxins and furans”, “Pesticides”, “BFRs”, “Solvents”, “PAH”, “Organotin compounds”
• contaminant: Name of contaminant as stated in Supplementary Table 1 (contaminant column)
• value: Raw concentration reported by the laboratory, or a threshold if the value is below LOQ or LOD
• unit: Unit for contaminant concentration
• is_censored: TRUE or FALSE where TRUE refers to the value being an upper limit in the form of LOQ or LOD. See the Supplementary Table 3 for more details.
• LOQ_LOD: Indicates how the value relates to the method LOQ and/or LOD. A full description is found in Supplementary Table 3
• uncertainty: The uncertainty level of the analysis. This is not calculated before 2011.
• contaminant_full_name: Full name of the contaminant such as stated in Supplementary Table 3
• contaminant_alt_name: Alternative short name of the contaminant widely used
• CAS_number: The CAS or unique international identifier of the contaminant
• suspected_outlier: TRUE or FALSE where TRUE refers to a suspected outlier based on median absolute deviation from linear model residual for the combination of station, species and contaminant.
• laboratory: Different laboratories as described in Table 1 and Supplementary File 1: “SU”, “UMU”, “SLU”, “IVL”, “SFA”
• instrument: Instruments as described in Table 1 and Supplementary File 1: “ICP-MS”, “DMA80”, “LC-MS-MS”, “GC-ECD”, “GC-HRMS”, “GC-MS”, “Packed-GC”, “Double-beam spectrophotometer”, “AAS” “HPLC-FLC”
• analytical_method: Analytical methods as described in Table 1 and Supplementary File 1: ”SU_Metals”, ”SU_Hg”, ”SU_PFAS”, ”SU_CLC_BFR”, ”UMU_Dioxin_PCB”, ”SLU_Hg”, ”SLU_Metals”, ”IVL_PAH”, ”SFA_CLC_BFR”, ”SLU_PFAS”, “IVL_OT”
• sex: “Female”, “Male”, “Hermaphrodite”, “Immature”, “Mixed”, “Undetermined”, else is NA
• total_length: Specimen total body length in millimetres for fish (including tail), mussel or egg, average if homogenate, else is NA
• age: The specimen age, average if homogenate, else is NA
• weight: Specimen total weight in gram (g), average if homogenate, else is NA
• organ: Sampled organ for contaminant analysis: “Liver” or “Muscle” for fish, “Soft tissue” for mussels, and “Egg content” for birds.
• fat_percentage: Fat percentage in the analysed organ done by the laboratory with the contaminants analyses.
• dry_weight_percentage: Dry weight percentage of the analysed organ done by the laboratory with the contaminants analyses.
• shell_thickness: Birds shell thickness (mm), else is NA
• d13C: Isotope ratio 13C/12C relative internal standards (δ13C; ‰)
• d15N: Isotope ratio 15N/14N relative to air (δ15N; ‰)
• C_dw_percentage: Total carbon in relation to dry weight
• N_dw_percentage: Total nitrogen in relation to dry weight
• station_name: Stations full name in English alphabet (ö changed to o and å,ä to a)
• latitude: Latitude of the station (WGS84 projection system)
• longitude: Longitude of the station (WGS84 projection system)
• HELCOM_basin: HELCOM basin divisions to which belongs the station (see HELCOM basin divisions at https://helcom.fi/)
• ICES_basin: ICES basin divisions to which belongs the station (see ICES basin divisions at http://www.ices.dk/)
• ICES_station: Station code corresponding to the code in ICES databases
• season: Sampling season “Spring” (March to mid-July) or “Autumn” (mid-July to December)

Intercalibration_metals.csv contains the intercalibration files for metals with year, specimen_ID, laboratory, species, station_name, fat_percentage and the contaminants (Hg, Ni, Cr, Pb, Cd, Zn, As, Ag).

Intercalibration_PFAS.csv contains the values on the Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances with specimen_ID, laboratory, species, station_name, and the area (marine or freshwater).

Intercalibration_BFR.csv contains the values of Brominated Flame Retardants with specimen_ID, laboratory, species, station_name, organ and fat_percentage.

intercalibration_CLC.csv contains values of non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (ndl-PCBs), hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) with specimen_ID, laboratory, species, station_name, organ and fat_percentage.

These intercalibrations were made during laboratory changes for contaminants analyses.

Comments

A version of this dataset will be continuously maintained and updated at https://github.com/NRM-MOC/mcomDb.