Fig 1 - available via license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Content may be subject to copyright.
Site Location -Location of Red Dog Mine and DMTS in northwestern Alaska with home ranges of Western Arctic and Teshekpuk Caribou Herds.
Source publication
Overland transport of ore concentrate from the Red Dog lead/zinc mine in northwest Alaska to its seaport has historically raised concerns among local subsistence users regarding the potential impacts of fugitive dust from the operation, including the potential uptake of metals into caribou meat. Caribou are an integral part of life for northern Ala...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... distinct caribou herds are found in northern Alaska. The area near the Red Dog mine and the DMTS is included in the normal annual range of two of those herds, the Western Arctic (WAH) and the Teshekpuk (TCH) herds (Fig. 1). The Western Arctic herd (WAH) ranges over approximately 140,000 mile 2 ( Dau, 2015). This herd numbered approximately 242,000 in 1970, declined to approximately 75,000 in 1976, and peaked at approximately 490,000 in 2003. In 2013, the herd numbered approximately 235,000 (Dau, 2015). The smaller TCH numbered approximately 39,000 in ...
Citations
... However, the mining and smelting of lead-zinc ores have led to substantial environmental challenges Chen T. et al., 2022). During these processes, considerable amounts of dust and exhaust gases, primarily composed of sulfides and nitrogen oxides, are emitted (Garry et al., 2018;Kan et al., 2021). These pollutants not only severely impact the air quality surrounding mining areas but also pose a potential threat to the global atmospheric environment through atmospheric dissemination . ...
Introduction
The plant restoration and ecological restoration of lead-zinc mines are very important.
Methods
In this study, we used three local plants to carry out ecological restoration of abandoned lead–zinc mining areas and detected the adaptive mechanisms of soil bacterial diversity and function during the ecological restoration of lead–zinc mines through 16S rRNA sequencing.
Results
The results revealed that lead-zinc mining significantly reduced the soil bacterial diversity, including the Shannon, Simpson, and observed species indices, whereas the planting of the three ecological restoration plants restored the soil microbial diversity to a certain extent, leading to increases in the Shannon index and Observed species indices. Mining activities significantly reduced the abundances of RB41 and Bryobacter in the bulk soil compared with those in the nonmining areas, whereas the three ecological restoration plants increased the abundances of RB41 and Bryobacter in the rhizosphere soil compared with those in the bulk soil in the mining areas. Following the planting of the three types of ecologically restored plants, the soil bacterial community structure partially recovered. In addition, different plants have been found to have different functions in the lead-zinc ecological restoration process, including iron complex transport system-permitting proteins and ATP binding cassettes.
Discussion
This study confirms for the first time that plants adapt to the remediation process of abandoned lead-zinc mines by non-randomly assembling rhizosphere bacterial communities and functions, providing a reference for screening microbial remediation bacterial resources and plant microbe joint bioremediation strategies for lead-zinc mines.
... Solid waste, such as waste rocks and residues generated during the mining process of lead zinc mines, can also cause soil pollution [5]. Long-term storage can damage soil structure and fertility, affecting crop growth and yield [6]. Research has shown that lead zinc mining can have a systematic impact on the surrounding ecosystem, leading to a decrease in biodiversity [7,8]. ...
Background: So far, the assembly and response mechanism of soil fungi in the ecological restoration process of lead zinc mines is still unclear. Methods: In this study, we selected three plants for the ecological restoration of abandoned lead zinc mining areas and explored the community assembly mechanism by which soil fungi assist plants in adapting to the environment during the ecological restoration process. Results: The results revealed that the mining of lead zinc mines led to a significant decrease in soil fungal diversity, whereas the planting of three plants significantly increased the diversity of rhizosphere fungi. Mining activities significantly reduced the abundance of soil Fusarium, Macroventuria, Cladosporium, and Solicocozyma and increased the abundance of soil Helvella. After three ecologically restored plants were planted, the abundances of Fusarium and Cladosporium increased significantly, whereas the abundance of Helvella decreased significantly. In addition, Capronia was significantly enriched in the rhizosphere soils of three plant species in the mining area. β diversity and fungal guild analysis revealed that mining activities had a great impact on fungal communities and guilds. The ecological restoration of plants changed the guilds of rhizosphere fungi, making them closer to those of the control sample. In addition, the endophyte guild was significantly enriched in the rhizosphere soil of three ecologically restored plants, increasing their adaptability. Conclusions: The results provide a reference for screening lead zinc mine bioremediation strains and developing fungal plant joint remediation strategies.
... Decreasing trends of contaminants in Indigenous peoples' blood levels also indicate a dietary transition from traditional to highly-processed store-bought foods (Binnington et al. 2016a, b;Quinn et al. 2012), associated with cultural loss and additional health risks (Binnington et al. 2016a, b). A smaller body of research on the accumulation of radionuclides (Skuterud and Thorring 2015;Bossew et al. 2000) and other pollutants in caribou (Garry et al. 2018) is also situated in this cluster. ...
Arctic food systems are increasingly challenged by rapid climate change, loss of food security and subsequent weakening of food sovereignty, and destabilization of Indigenous practices. Despite growing scientific knowledge on Arctic food systems, Indigenous communities continue to struggle with a plethora of sustainability challenges. To develop a systemic understanding of these challenges, we performed a systematic review of 526 articles published between 1998 and 2021 on Arctic Indigenous food systems. We used the leverage points framework to structure our analysis to understand to what extent the existing Western scientific body of literature provides the necessary knowledge to understand the food system characteristics that give rise to the current sustainability challenges. We combined deductive qualitative and inductive quantitative approaches to identify gaps in the systemic understanding of Arctic Indigenous food systems. We characterized existing research across the four levels of systemic depth—parameters, feedbacks, design, intent—and identified promising directions for future research. Our analyses show that research on food systems is clustered within six main domains, we term environmental contaminants, diet and health, food security, food culture and economy, changing socio-ecological systems and marine and coast. Based on our analysis, we identify three directions for future research that we believe to be of particular importance to enable sustainability transformations of Arctic Indigenous food systems: (i) the decolonization of research practices, (ii) acknowledging the significance of systemic interdependencies across shallow and deep leverage points, and (iii) transdisciplinary action-oriented research collaborations directing transformative system interventions.
... Particulate matter (PM) emission from urban roads is a subject of great interest in recent years (Amato et al. 2014;Askariyeh et al. 2020;Pancras et al. 2013). Lately, there has been an uptick in number of studies focusing on the adverse health effects arising from acute and chronic exposure to road dust (Garry et al. 2018;Men et al. 2018;Mirzaei Aminiyan et al. 2018;Najmeddin and Keshavarzi 2018;Nazarpour et al. 2018). PM is generally seen as one of the most dangerous pollutants in the urban environment (U.S. EPA 1996a). ...
Particulate matter (PM) is one of the most dangerous pollutants in urban environments, and studies have linked it to many adverse health effects. Resuspended road dust makes up a large portion of PM. Therefore, monitoring and estimating the contribution of resuspended dust to PM is vital. In this study, emission rates of fine and coarse PM from different roads of Vellore City in Tamil Nadu, India, is estimated using silt loading protocol adapted by U.S. EPA. Silt load samples are collected from 8 different roads in the study region. The emission rates estimated using silt loading and fleet weight are then used to model the dispersion of PM throughout the study region using AERMOD. Hotspots of high PM concentration are identified at various locations frequented by commuters in the study region. Areas around educational institutions and hospitals in the region show highly elevated levels of PM. This study illustrates that resuspension of road dust can contribute significantly to PM in urban centers. Fine PM concentration exceeding 500 μg/m³ raises concerns about the health of commuters in the study region. This justifies the need for more regulations aiming at reducing the contribution of PM from resuspended road dust to overall urban PM.
... For each season, the entire range of the herd was divided into regions dependent on our collective understanding of the spatial ecology of the WAH ( Figure 3). We included a region surrounding the Red Dog Mine and its port road in the winter season because liver and kidney caribou samples from this area during winter have elevated concentrations of lead and cadmium (Garry et al., 2018). For spring and fall migration, the Kobuk River (a major river bisecting the herd's migratory range) was delineated into river length segments rather than areas ( Figure 3). ...
... One possibility for the high synchrony is that caribou calving is linked, either as a consequence of or in anticipation of the short flush of high-quality forage that emerges at this time of year . Additionally, it could potentially facilitate "swamping" or numerically overwhelming neonatal predators (Williams et al., 1993;Young & McCabe, 1998 Another management implication related to our work is that many populations of caribou are known to have elevated levels of heavy metal contaminants, such as lead and cadmium-particularly in specific organs such as the liver and kidneys (Garry et al., 2018). ...
... This is an important concern because many subsistence-based communities consume high levels of caribou and these contaminants can bioaccumulate (Kuiters, 1996) Garry et al., 2018). Given the relatively low fidelity to winter ranges by WAH caribou, elevated concentrations of contaminants in their tissues may be an issue for users across the herd's range, which includes about 40 rural villages and hunters coming from outside northwest Alaska. ...
How animals use their range can have physiological, ecological, and demographic repercussions, as well as impact management decisions, species conservation, and human society. Fidelity, the predictable return to certain places, can improve fitness if it is associated with high-quality habitat or helps enable individuals to locate heterogenous patches of higher-quality habitat within a lower-quality habitat matrix. Our goal was to quantify patterns of fidelity at different spatial scales to better understand the relative plasticity of habitat use of a vital subsistence species that undergoes long-distance migrations. We analyzed a decade (2010-2019) of GPS data from 240 adult, female Western Arctic Herd (WAH) caribou (Rangifer tarandus) from northwest Alaska, U.S.A. We assessed fidelity at 2 spatial scales: to site-specific locations within seasonal ranges and to regions within the herd's entire range by using 2 different null datasets. We assessed both area and consistency of use during 6 different seasons of the year. We also assessed the temporal consistency of migration and calving events. At the scale of the overall range, we found that caribou fidelity was greatest during the calving and insect relief (early summer) seasons, where the herd tended to maximally aggregate in the smallest area, and lowest in winter when the seasonal range is largest. However, even in seasons with lower fidelity, we found that caribou still showed fidelity to certain regions within the herd's range. Within those seasonal ranges, however, there was little individual site-specific fidelity from year to year, with the exception of summer periods. Temporally, we found that over 90% of caribou gave birth within 7 days of the day they gave birth the previous year. This revealed fairly high temporal consistency, especially given the spatial and temporal variability of spring migration. Fall migration exhibited greater temporal variability than spring migration. Our results support the hypothesis that higher fidelity to seasonal ranges is related to greater environmental and resource predictability. Interestingly, this fidelity was stronger at larger scales and at the population level. Almost the entire herd would seek out these areas with predictable resources, and then, individuals would vary their use, likely in response to annually varying conditions. During seasons with lower presumed spatial and/or temporal predictability of resources, population-level fidelity was lower but individual fidelity was higher. The
This systematic review and meta-analysis based on PRISMA statements aimed to summarise the data on the chemical composition of reindeer meat depending on the region of the Rangifer tarandus. We searched SCOPUS, PubMed, Embase, CrossRef, Medline, Cochrane library, eLibrary, and CyberLeninka. A total of 3310 records published between January 1980 and December 2021 were screened. We identified 34 relevant studies conducted in Russia, Norway, the USA, Canada, and Finland for the synthesis. Overall, the consumption of reindeer meat reduces arterial hypertension and atherosclerosis due to many polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic, linolenic, arachidonic) and vitamin C, which balances lipid fractions. Venison is an effective means of preventing obesity and adapting to cold due to the content of a complete set of essential trace elements, amino acids, and even L-carnitine. The high content of vitamin C and microelements (iron, zinc, copper) in reindeer meat is likely to increase the body’s antioxidant defence against free radicals and help prevent chronic non-infectious diseases. Thus, venison is an essential component of the adaptation mechanism for the Arctic population.
Historical transport of ore concentrate over a 50-mile haul road from the Red Dog zinc/lead mine in northwest Alaska to a seaport has been associated with elevated lead levels on moss growing near the road and with concerns about the safety of subsistence foods. As part of a comprehensive evaluation of potential impacts to human health and the environment from metals released during overland transport of ore concentrate, a human health risk assessment was conducted. Exposure to site-related metals through subsistence food consumption, water ingestion, and incidental soil ingestion was evaluated for three scenarios: child subsistence use, adult subsistence use, and adult combined occupational and subsistence use. The risk assessment used local subsistence food consumption data and subsistence harvest area information, along with metal concentrations from soil, water, caribou, fish, ptarmigan, berries, and sourdock collected on or near the road and port. The results, along with other lines of evidence, indicate that risks associated with subsistence food consumption and harvest activities are well within acceptable limits for each scenario and that subsistence foods remain safe to eat. Additionally, human health risks are not elevated even when data from restricted areas of the road and port are included.
