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Animal Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences

Experimental And Natural Warming Elevates Mercury Concentrations In Estuarine Fish, Jennifer A. Dijkstra, Kate L. Buckman, Darren Ward, David W. Evans, Michele Dionne, Celia Y. Chen Mar 2013

Experimental And Natural Warming Elevates Mercury Concentrations In Estuarine Fish, Jennifer A. Dijkstra, Kate L. Buckman, Darren Ward, David W. Evans, Michele Dionne, Celia Y. Chen

Dartmouth Scholarship

Marine food webs are the most important link between the global contaminant, methylmercury (MeHg), and human exposure through consumption of seafood. Warming temperatures may increase human exposure to MeHg, a potent neurotoxin, by increasing MeHg production as well as bioaccumulation and trophic transfer through marine food webs. Studies of the effects of temperature on MeHg bioaccumulation are rare and no study has specifically related temperature to MeHg fate by linking laboratory experiments with natural field manipulations in coastal ecosystems. We performed laboratory and field experiments on MeHg accumulation under varying temperature regimes using the killifish, Fundulus heteroclitus. Temperature treatments …


Algal Blooms Reduce The Uptake Of Toxic Methylmercury In Freshwater Food Webs, Paul C. Pickhardt, Carol L. Folt, Celia Y. Chen, Bjoern Klaue, Joel D. Blum Jan 2002

Algal Blooms Reduce The Uptake Of Toxic Methylmercury In Freshwater Food Webs, Paul C. Pickhardt, Carol L. Folt, Celia Y. Chen, Bjoern Klaue, Joel D. Blum

Dartmouth Scholarship

Mercury accumulation in fish is a global public health concern, because fish are the primary source of toxic methylmercury to humans. Fish from all lakes do not pose the same level of risk to consumers. One of the most intriguing patterns is that potentially dangerous mercury concentrations can be found in fish from clear, oligotrophic lakes whereas fish from greener, eutrophic lakes often carry less mercury. In this study, we experimentally tested the hypothesis that increasing algal biomass reduces mercury accumulation at higher trophic levels through the dilution of mercury in consumed algal cells. Under bloom dilution, as algal biomass …