Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Humic And Fulvic Acids: Sink Or Source In The Availability Of Metals To The Marine Bivalves Macoma Balthica And Potamocorbula Amurensis?, Alan W. Decho, Samuel N. Luoma

Faculty Publications

Humic acids (HA) and fulvic acids (FA) are common forms of organic matter in marine sediments, and are routinely ingested by deposit- and suspension-feeding animals. These compounds may be a sink for metals, implying that once metals are bound to humic substances they are no longer available to food webs. A series of experiments was conducted to quantitatively examine this premise using 2 estuarine bivalves from San Francisco Bay, USA: the suspension feeder Potarnocorbula arnurensis and the facultative deposit feeder Macoma balthica. HA and FA, isolated from marine sediments, were bound as organic coatings to either hydrous ferric oxides …