Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data for: 'Ecotoxicoparasitology of the gastrointestinal tracts of pinnipeds: effect of parasites on bioavailability of total mercury (THg)'

Parasites, such as acanthocephalans, cestodes, and some species of nematodes acquire nutrients from the lumen contents within the host gastrointestinal (GI) tract. For ubiquitous toxicants like mercury, both the host species and parasites are potentially exposed. The focus of this study was to determine if there is an effect of parasites on the dietary availability and therefore exposure to mercury within pinniped hosts. We measured total mercury concentrations and stable isotope compositions in select host tissues, parasites, and GI lumen contents from 22 California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), 15 ringed seals (Phoca hispida), and 4 spotted seals (Phoca largha). This dataset includes stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values for the tissues and parasites of California sea lions and ice seals from California and Alaska coastal waters necropsied and harvested in 2009-2010 respectively. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data are useful for clarifying trophic relationships in host-parasite systems. These data were used in tandem with tissue mercury concentrations to explore the role of gastrointestinal parasites on pinniped mercury exposure. There are two files in this dataset: 1) A comma delimited machine-readable file (*.csv) that represents the data dictionary, and 2) a comma delimited machine-readable file (*.csv) containing the data.

棘头虫（acanthocephalans）、绦虫（cestodes）及部分线虫（nematodes）类寄生虫可从宿主胃肠道（gastrointestinal, GI）道的内腔内容物中获取营养。对于汞这类广泛分布的有毒物质而言，宿主与寄生虫均存在潜在暴露风险。本研究的核心目标为明确寄生虫是否会对鳍足类宿主的膳食汞生物可利用性产生影响，进而改变其汞暴露水平。研究团队针对22头加州海狮（Zalophus californianus）、15头环斑海豹（Phoca hispida）及4头斑海豹（Phoca largha）的选定宿主组织、寄生虫以及胃肠道内腔内容物，测定了总汞浓度与稳定同位素组成。本数据集包含分别于2009年、2010年在加利福尼亚与阿拉斯加沿海水域完成剖检和捕捞的加州海狮及冰栖海豹的组织与寄生虫的稳定碳、氮同位素比值。稳定碳、氮同位素数据可用于解析宿主-寄生虫系统中的营养级关系。本数据集与组织汞浓度数据联用，旨在探究胃肠道寄生虫对鳍足类动物汞暴露的调控作用。本数据集包含两类文件：1）一份逗号分隔的机器可读文件（*.csv），即数据字典；2）一份逗号分隔的机器可读文件（*.csv），存储了全部实验原始数据。