Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of legacy organochlorines (OCs) is often difficult because monitoring practices differ among studies, fragmented study periods, and unaccounted confounding by ecological variables. We therefore reconstructed long-term (1939–2015) and large-scale (West Greenland, Norway, and central Sweden) trends of major legacy OCs using white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) body feathers, to understand the exposure dynamics in regions with different contamination sources and concentrations, as well as the effectiveness of legislations. We included dietary proxies (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) in temporal trend models to control for potential dietary plasticity. Consistent with the hypothesised high local pollution sources, levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs) and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs) in the Swedish subpopulation exceeded those in the other subpopulations. In contrast, chlordanes (CHLs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) showed higher concentrations in Greenland, suggesting the importance of long-range transport. The models showed significantly decreasing trends for all OCs in Sweden in 1968–2011 except for CHLs, which only decreased since the 1980s. Nevertheless, median concentrations of DDTs and PCBs remained elevated in the Swedish subpopulation throughout the 1970s, suggesting that the decreases only commenced after the implementation of regulations during the 1970s. We observed significant trends of increasing concentrations of PCBs, CHLs and HCB in Norway from the 1930s to the 1970s/1980s and decreasing concentrations thereafter. All OC concentrations, except those of PCBs were generally significantly decreasing in the Greenland subpopulation in 1985-2013. All three subpopulations showed generally increasing proportions of the more persistent compounds (CB 153, p.p′-DDE and β-HCH) and decreasing proportions of the less persistent ones (CB 52, p.p′-DDT, α- and γ-HCH). Declining trends of OC concentrations may imply the decreasing influence of legacy OCs in these subpopulations. Finally, our results demonstrate the usefulness of archived museum feathers in retrospective monitoring of spatiotemporal trends of legacy OCs using birds of prey as sentinels.

了解遗留有机氯（OCs）的时空模式通常很困难，因为研究之间的监测实践有所不同，研究时期分散，生态变量难以解释。因此，我们使用白尾鹰（Haliaeetus albicilla）的体羽重构了主要遗留OC的长期（1939–2015年）和大规模（西格陵兰，挪威和瑞典中部）趋势，以了解具有以下特征的地区的暴露动态不同的污染源和浓度，以及法规的有效性。我们包括饮食代理（δ ¹³ C和δ ¹⁵N）在时间趋势模型中控制潜在的饮食可塑性。与假定的局部高污染源一致，瑞典亚人群中的多氯联苯（PCBs），二氯二苯基三氯乙烷（DDTs）和六氯环己烷（HCHs）的水平超过了其他亚人群的水平。相比之下，氯丹（CHLs）和六氯苯（HCB）在格陵兰的浓度较高，表明远程运输很重要。这些模型显示，1968年至2011年期间，瑞典所有OC的趋势都显着下降，但CHL除外，CHL直到1980年代才下降。尽管如此，在整个1970年代，瑞典亚人群中滴滴涕和PCBs的中位数浓度仍然升高，这表明这种下降仅在1970年代实施法规后才开始。我们观察到从1930年代到1970年代/ 1980年代挪威的PCBs，CHLs和HCB浓度增加的显着趋势，此后浓度下降。在1985-2013年间，格陵兰亚群中，除多氯联苯外的所有OC浓度总体上都显着下降。所有这三个亚人群都显示出，持久性化合物的比例总体上呈上升趋势（CB 153，第'-DDE和β -HCH）和较持久的人的比例降低（CB 52，第滴滴涕，α -和γ -HCH）。OC浓度下降的趋势可能暗示着传统OC在这些亚群中的影响力正在降低。最后，我们的结果表明，以museum鸟为前哨，对历史悠久的OC的时空趋势进行回顾性监测时，存档的博物馆羽毛非常有用。