Bioavailability of mercury in several north-eastern U.S. Spartina ecosystemsa,*

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0302-3524(81)80093-XGet rights and content

Mercury concentrations were measured in sediments, marsh grasses, mussels and fiddler crabs in salt marsh plots treated with a mercury-containing commercial sludge fertilizer and in clean and industrially contaminated marshes. Mercury accumulated in the roots of the marsh grass Spartina alterniflora, rather than in rhizomes or above-ground tissues. Mercury concentrations did not increase in marsh organisms within the plots treated with sewage sludge. Highest concentrations of mercury were found in animals living in the least organic marsh sediments. Mercury was closely associated with small (<0·5 mm) detrital particles. Only between 10 and 30% of the total soil mercury was complexed by the humic and fulvic acid fraction of the marsh soil.

References (42)

  • AlbertsJ.J. et al.

    Elemental mercury evolution mediated by humic acids

    Science

    (1974)
  • BeaufordW. et al.

    Uptake and distribution of mercury within higher plants

    Physiologica Plantarum

    (1977)
  • BisogniJ.J. et al.

    Kinetics of mercury methylation in aerobic and anaerobic aquatic environments

    Journal of the Water Pollution Control Federation

    (1975)
  • BretelerR.J. et al.

    Retention and fate of experimentally added mercury in a Massachusetts salt marsh treated with sewage sludge

    Marine Environmental Research

    (1981)
  • BryanG.W.

    Some aspects of heavy metal tolerance in aquatic organisms

  • BurtonJ.D. et al.

    Mercury in a coastal marine environment

    Nature

    (1971)
  • ClineJ.T. et al.

    Mercury mobilization as an organic complex

  • CrossF.A. et al.

    Relation between total body weight and concentrations of manganese, iron, copper, zinc and mercury in white muscle of blue fish (Pomatomus saltatrix) and a bathyldemersal fish Antimora rostrata

    Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada

    (1973)
  • ErikssonC. et al.

    Mercury uptake in rooted higher aquatic plants: laboratory studies

    Verhändlungen der Internationalen Vereinigung der Limnologie

    (1975)
  • FujikiM.

    The transitional conditions of Minamata Ray and the neighbouring sea polluted by factory waste water containing mercury

  • GiblinA.E. et al.

    Uptake and losses of heavy metals in sewage sludge by a New England salt marsh

    American Journal of Botany

    (1980)
  • Cited by (0)

    a

    Contribution No. 4498 from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

    *

    This work was supported by Sea Grant grant #04-7-158-44104, NOAA Office of Sea Grant.

    d

    Present address: Battelle Columbus Laboratories, William F. Clapp Laboratories, Washington Street, Duxbury, Massachusetts 02332, U.S.A.

    View full text