Calanus as vectors of pharmaceuticals and contaminants in the marine environment (PharmaCal)

The discharge of contaminants such as metals, pharmaceuticals, and petrochemicals from urban and industrial areas into coastal systems can result in a wide range of impacts for marine life and human health. Tracing these impacts from source to the health of both humans and the marine ecosystem presents an interdisciplinary One Health (a globally adopted approach that recognises the interdependencies of human, animal, and environmental health) challenge, since the transport pathways involved span physics, chemistry, biology, and socioeconomics. Contaminants released into water can accumulate in plankton, be transported via ocean currents and animal migrations, magnify up the marine food chain, and eventually re-enter the human diet through seafood. All these pathways potentially shape a complex web of interdependence through which UK contaminant discharge is exported to seafood consumers and Atlantic Ocean ecosystems. PharmaCal will, for the first time, weave together a compelling picture of the vital role played by Calanus copepods (C. finmarchicus and C. helgolandicus) in this complex story - tiny, lipid-rich crustacean zooplankton that lie at the heart of the Atlantic Ocean’s complex marine food chain.
Calanus perform a critical role of transferring energy through the food web via the ingestion of algae (phytoplankton) which are converted to fat storage, providing a lipid rich food source which sustains much of the North Atlantic food web. Critically, these lipid stores can provide routes of contaminant accumulation directly from the water or through contaminated phytoplankton. Calanus play a crucial role in supporting fisheries and aquaculture that are economically vital for the UK and socially vital for island and rural communities. Until now there is almost no research on the role of Calanus in contaminant uptake and transport, and only fragmentary research on their vector pathways. Here we propose a highly interdisciplinary One Health project, working across public healthcare, social science, fisheries, ecotoxicology, behavioural ecology, and oceanography to address this research gap. We will use a combination of Calanus behavioural experiments, contaminant quantification, documentary analysis, extracting prescription data, field sampling, ocean modelling, and semi-structured interviews. Our approach will be to trace contaminant movement in Calanus through both natural and human-mediated pathways via i) transport of Calanus in the North Atlantic by ocean currents; ii) transport of contaminants up the food chain; and iii) transport through the fisheries/aquaculture industry and export market. We will be working within existing collaborative partnerships and developing new links across four UKRI Research Councils: BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, and NERC. 
Through five work packages we will develop a new model species for understanding contaminant uptake and pathways in the marine environment through ecosystems to humans.  We will help healthcare providers and environmental and food agencies better understand how marine contaminants travel, supporting more environmentally conscious prescribing. We will develop a series of new methodologies, including assessing how contaminants can bioaccumulate and alter Calanus behaviour and the effect this has on ocean-scale migrations; identifying different pathways of contaminant transport via ocean transport, biological migrations, fisheries, and aquaculture exports; and how contaminants in Calanus directly impact human health. These approaches will provide a key link between classic STEM research and people-focused science and will work at the intersection of the UN’s One Health foci of Animal Health, Human Health, and Environment.