2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference

March 13 - 15, 2022

5/24/2018 | 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM | MERCURY BIOMAGNIFICATION IN AQUATIC FOOD WEBS ON A GLOBAL SCALE | 330 A

MERCURY BIOMAGNIFICATION IN AQUATIC FOOD WEBS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Methylmercury (MeHg) concentrations in aquatic food webs increase with trophic level (TL) but this process of biomagnification varies among systems. Herein we compared this process across gradients of latitude, physicochemical characteristics, and diversity using trophic magnification factors (TMFs), a metric based on the slope between log MeHg (or total Hg) concentrations and TL (measured with stable nitrogen isotopes; delta15N) that quantifies the per TL accumulation of this metal. In this global meta-analysis, TMF values were higher for MeHg (mean: 7.5 times/TL; range: 2–64) than for total Hg (mean: 4.8 times/TL; range: 0.2–91) across diverse freshwater and marine food webs. Some of this wide variation was related to latitude, with Arctic food webs having higher MeHg TMFs (~10 times/TL) than those from the tropics (~4 times/TL), likely because of slower growth rates in colder climates. In freshwater systems, MeHg TMF values were higher in riverine food webs compared to lacustrine ones. Understanding how Hg behavior in food webs is affected by system characteristics can help identify areas at greatest risk from legacy inputs or those that may respond more quickly to global reductions in Hg emissions through the Minamata Convention.

Pollution
Food Webs
Spatial

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Presenters/Authors

Karen Kidd (), McMaster University, karenkidd@mcmaster.ca;