Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Assessment, Monitoring and Adaptation To Food and Water Security Threats to the Sustainability of Arctic Remote Alaska Native Villages
EPA Grant Number: R835597Title: Assessment, Monitoring and Adaptation To Food and Water Security Threats to the Sustainability of Arctic Remote Alaska Native Villages
Investigators: Berner, James E. , Brubaker, Michael
Institution: Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2018 (Extended to June 30, 2019)
Project Amount: $888,282
RFA: Science for Sustainable and Healthy Tribes (2013) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Tribal Environmental Health Research , Human Health
Objective:
The research objective of this grant was to test the feasibility of a village-based, resident-operated environmental monitoring program, in the Bering Strait region of Northwest Alaska. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC), the statewide arm of the Alaska Tribal Health System, introduced and evaluated the Rural Alaska Monitoring Program (RAMP) in the Bering Strait region’s coastal villages. Assessment of current and emerging threats to food security, and the willingness of village hunters and wildlife management agencies to participate were the key metrics of the success of RAMP. Village hunter participation, as measured by specimens submitted by hunters, data gathered on existing threats, data gathered on emerging threats, including threats not known to previously exist, will be presented in the sections that follow.
Climate-influenced zoonotic pathogen and contaminant exposure measurements were the focus of the RAMP village-based monitoring. Throughout the five years of this EPA project, the development of filter paper blood sample technology has been a goal. Sampling results and the advances developed with EPA support in filter paper technology will be discussed in subsequent sections.
The ANTHC has utilized a One Health approach to recognize and deal with the climate-mediated environmental threats to rural Alaska Native residents. This world view recognizes the critical interdependence of human, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and climate, and has made the concept of environmental monitoring a natural extension of the process of acquiring local knowledge.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
RAMP metrics included antibody levels to Brucella species, Toxoplasma gondii, and Coxiella burnetii bacteria in the blood of subsistence marine mammals and land mammals; presence of cyanobacterial toxins in surface fresh water ponds; presence of the harmful algal bloom (HAB) toxins, saxitoxin (SAX) and domoic acid (DA) in clams, and stomach contents of marine mammals; evidence of Franciscella tularensis bacteria (FT) genetic material carried by mosquitos, as evidenced by positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in pooled mosquito samples from northern and Bering Strait locations; in addition to those tests, testing on gut contents of wild and domestic canid species for evidence of carriage of Echinococcosis multilocularis (EM) occurred.
Within the last year, testing for zoonosis has shown the presence of pathogens in Arctic Alaska marine mammals which was not previously known to be present. Thus, confirming the importance of continued rural biomonitoring in this region undergoing rapid environmental change.
The sampling of surface freshwater sources for methylmercury and cyanobacterial toxins has proven impractical, due to the difficulty of achieving and maintaining timely refrigeration and shipping of remote surface water samples and weather-related travels to remote sampling sites.
Technical enhancements of the filter paper blood sampling method will enable hunter-gathered blood samples to be used to create datasets that may allow for mercury and organohalogen contaminant-related risk assessments. In harvested marine mammals, stable isotope ratios, particularly of C and N correlate with changes in trophic level of forage in marine mammal diet, which can be used evaluate any associations with climate-mediated changes in ocean temperature and circulation.
Marine Mammal Samples
The grant target of 300 marine mammal filter paper blood samples was met. A total of 369 marine mammal filter paper kits were received from hunts conducted from 2014 through 6/30/2017. Yet, not all the filter paper samples were technically adequate for analysis, as some kits were not adequately blood soaked. The total number of usable marine mammal filter paper specimens received was 272 over three sampling seasons. Where adequate saturated filter paper was available, subsets of the group were analyzed for total mercury (THg), total selenium (TSe), and stable isotope ratios (SIRs) of carbon and nitrogen.
Due to the number of marine mammal species tested, the number of separate analyses, the complexity of the tests, and the limitation of funds, complete antibody correlations with region, season, sex, and stable isotopes of N by species is not available at this time.
The discovery of the recently identified marine brucella species (Brucella pinnipedialis) in northern fur seals was an unexpected finding and is now being analyzed by wildlife and academic biologists at the University of Fairbanks. From a human health perspective, protective measures for these organisms are the same as previously identified species of brucella. The potential for marine brucella species as a human pathogen is not defined yet, as only a few human cases have been identified.
Zoonotic Antibodies in Land Mammals
The target of 200 land mammals was not met, but 171 adequate caribou samples were analyzed with the following results:
Brucella abortus plate test 15/171, 8.8% positive; Toxoplasma Gondi Indirect ELISA 3/171 positive, 1.75%; Coxiella burnetti ELISA 0/171 positive. No new land mammal subsistence filter paper samples were solicited in the 2018 hunting season, as the prevalence results thus far show no changes from prior studies.
All 171 caribou samples were below the limits of detection for THg.
Franciscella tularensis (FT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Testing of Mosquitos
During the 2017-18 sampling season, the presence of mosquito DNA has been found to possibly interfere with the FT PCR method, and re-testing with decapitated mosquito pools, from the original sample sites was planned but, due to departure of the investigator who was to perform the studies, the tasks could not be accomplished. It was hoped that this would eliminate the interference from mosquito DNA.
The overall results suggest that if the existing PCR results can be duplicated with no interference from mosquito DNA, then the FT organism may have spread to regions of northern Alaska via mosquitoes, a fact not widely recognized in North America, which is demonstrated to occur in Northern Europe. The data obtained thus far is not able to address whether these mosquitoes are carrying FT.
Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) Toxins
RAMP funding has supported harmful algal bloom (HAB) toxins, domoic acid and saxitoxin sampling on gastrointestinal contents harvested by Alaska Native subsistence hunters from walrus and ice seals (ringed seals, bearded seals, spotted seals, and ribbon seals).
The distribution of HAB toxins in the northern Bering Sea has proved challenging, in that the access to clams on the beach depends on fall storms. Collection has to happen in conjunction with the period immediately after the storm and before the next tide. It has been much more productive to analyze stomach contents of the two benthic feeding species most commonly harvested, bearded seals and walrus. As previously reported, stomach and intestinal contents of marine mammals 2015-2016, feeding on upper tropic level forage species were sent for analysis, and both domoic acid and saxitoxin have been identified.
Thus far, all levels of domoic acid and saxitoxin have been well under EPA regulatory levels of 80 ug/L required for commercial sale of clams. Sufficient funding to repeat the HAB studies on walrus harvested in 2018-2019 was not available.
Echinococcus in Northwest Alaska Canids (i.e. red fox, Arctic fox, wolves, coyotes and village dogs)
The fall-winter of 2016-2017, collection of specimens of 319 colon and/or fecal specimens included 60% red fox, 30% domestic dog, 3% wolf, and the remainder divided between marten, mink, lynx, and river otter. The RAMP grant funding was not sufficient to support the required analysis needed to identify accurately all the species of parasites found thus far, but there is a great deal of interest in this effort, and it is continuing with other funding support, and analysis is underway, at Colorado State University. The results should be available this winter and when published by the investigators, will be shared with appropriate village, regional, state, tribal, EPA other and federal officials.
Conclusions:
- This grant enabled the introduction of a village-based, resident-operated environmental biomonitoring program in Northwest Alaska to detect climate-affected food security threats
- Using grant funds, the UAF WTL has been able to develop the following valuable new applications of filter paper blood sampling:
- The determination of stable isotopes of Carbon and Nitrogen
- The determination of whole blood Mercury and Selenium in land and marine mammals and subsistence fish.
- A method to concentrate antibodies in the filter paper eluate, and increase the detection of zoonotic pathogen antibodies
- Demonstrated the feasibility of utilizing filter paper specimens for organohalogen analysis.
Journal Articles on this Report : 5 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 20 publications | 5 publications in selected types | All 5 journal articles |
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Hansen CM, Hueffer K, Gulland F, Wells RS, Balmer BC, Castellini JM, O'Hara T. Use of cellulose filter paper to quantify whole-blood mercury in two marine mammals:validation study. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 2014;50(2):271-278. |
R835597 (2018) R835597 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
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O'Hara TM, Templeton M, Castellini M, Wells R, Beckman K, Berner J. Use of blood-soaked cellulose filter paper for measuring carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 2018;54(2):375-379. |
R835597 (2017) R835597 (2018) R835597 (Final) |
Exit |
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O'Hara T, Hueffer K, Murphy M, Castellini JM, Li Y, Rea L, Berner J. Developing a Sentinal-based Baja California Sur Rural Mexico Monitoring Program (BCS RMMP):lessons learned from Alaska. Recursos Naturales y Sociedad 2017;3(2):12-31. |
R835597 (2017) R835597 (2018) R835597 (Final) |
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Berner J, Brubaker M, Revitch B, Kreummel E, Tcheripanoff M, Bell J. Adaptation in Arctic circumpolar communities:food and water security in a changing climate. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2016;75(1):33820. |
R835597 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
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McHuron EA, Castellini JM, Rios CA, Berner J, Gulland FM, Greig DJ, O'Hara TM. HAIR, WHOLE BLOOD, AND BLOOD-SOAKED CELLULOSE PAPER-BASED RISK ASSESSMENT OF MERCURY CONCENTRATIONS IN STRANDED CALIFORNIA PINNIPEDS. Journal of wildlife diseases 2019:55(4);823-833 |
R835597 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
environmental threats; biomonitoring; contaminants; zoonotic; antibodies; climate; Toxoplasma; Brucella; Coxiella; saxitoxin; domoic acid; Franciscella; One HealthRelevant Websites:
Information on Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium RAMP Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.
Project Research Results
- 2018 Progress Report
- 2017 Progress Report
- 2016 Progress Report
- 2015 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
5 journal articles for this project