Dear members of the MARMAM community, My co-authors and I are pleased to announce our recent publication in Environmental Science & Technology: Individual Prey Specialization Drives PCBs in Icelandic Killer Whales: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.0c08563 You can find an explanation of our main findings here, in a non-academic way: https://whalescientists.com/icelandic-orcas/ Feel free to share this summary everywhere. Here is the abstract: Interindividual variation in prey specialization is an essential yet overlooked aspect of wildlife feeding ecology, especially as it relates to intrapopulation variation in exposure to toxic contaminants. Here, we assessed blubber concentrations of an extensive suite of persistent organic pollutants in Icelandic killer whales (Orcinus orca). Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations in blubber were >300-fold higher in the most contaminated individual relative to the least contaminated, ranging from 1.3 to 428.6 mg·kg–1 lw. Mean PCB concentrations were 6-to-9-fold greater in individuals with a mixed diet including marine mammals than in fish specialist individuals, whereas males showed PCB concentrations 4-fold higher than females. Given PCBs have been identified as potentially impacting killer whale population growth, and levels in mixed feeders specifically exceeded known thresholds, the ecology of individuals must be recognized to accurately forecast how contaminants may threaten the long-term persistence of the world’s ultimate marine predator. Please reach out to me if you have questions/comments or if you want the PDF version of our paper. You can also reach me at anais.remili@mail.mcgill.ca Cheers, Anaïs Remili