Identifying waterbodies where fish methylmercury concentrations are elevated is critical for development of consumption guidelines. However, mercury concentrations vary among waterbodies and fishes due to a suite of environmental conditions and detection of elevated mercury concentrations is imperfect, resulting in inaccurate consumption guidelines. Occupancy models may be a useful approach for addressing these issues but have not been used for these purposes. Our objectives were to use occupancy modeling to (1) estimate number of samples needed to detect mercury levels surpassing >0.30 mg/kg wet weight in fish at a waterbody (2) identify individual fish-level factors associated with detection probability, and (3) identify environmental-level factors linked to elevated mercury levels in fish at a waterbody. Mercury concentrations were estimated from >500 largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and walleye Sander vitreus from 30 waterbodies throughout Iowa, USA to identify individuals with concentrations > or <0.30 mg/kg. Probability of detecting mercury concentrations >0.30 mg/kg varied between species and increased with fish length; consequently, more samples were needed to detect elevated mercury concentrations in small versus large fish. The probability of a waterbody having fish with elevated mercury levels increased with the percent grassland and declined with percent agriculture in the watershed, providing prioritization metrics for mercury surveillance programs. Our results demonstrate that occupancy models can be a valuable tool for mercury surveillance due to their ability to estimate necessary sample sizes and identify fish sizes and waterbodies with elevated mercury concentrations while accounting for imperfect detection probabilities.

确定鱼甲基汞浓度升高的水体对于制定消费指南至关重要。但是，由于一系列环境条件，水体和鱼类中的汞浓度会有所不同，检测到的汞浓度升高是不完善的，从而导致消费指南不准确。占用模型可能是解决这些问题的有用方法，但尚未用于这些目的。我们的目标是使用居住模型来（1）​​估计检测水体中鱼中汞含量超过0.30 mg / kg湿重所需的样品数量（2）识别与检测概率相关的单个鱼水平因子，以及（3 ）确定与水体鱼体内汞含量升高相关的环境因素。来自美国爱荷华州的30个水体的小鳍金枪鱼和沙眼玻璃体，以识别浓度>或<0.30 mg / kg。汞浓度> 0.30 mg / kg的可能性在不同物种之间有所不同，并且随鱼的长度而增加；因此，需要更多的样本来检测大小鱼类中汞含量的升高。流域中水体中汞含量升高的鱼类的概率随着流域中草地的百分比而增加，而随着农业百分比的降低而下降，这为汞监测计划提供了优先指标。我们的结果表明，由于占用模型能够估算必要的样本量并识别汞浓度升高的鱼类大小和水体，同时又能考虑到不完善的检测概率，因此占用模型可能是汞监测的重要工具。