Mercury in the Diatoms of Various Ecological Formations

Abstract

Mercury is a neurotoxin, its main source in the human organism being fish and seafood. The first level in the marine food web is formed of planktonic and benthic photosynthetic microorganisms, which form a biofilm on the surface of the hard bottom (epilithon) or plants (epiphyton). They are carriers of nutritional as well as toxic substances and pass these on to subsequent levels of the trophic web. Their biomass is often dominated by diatoms. This was the basis for the presented study into Hg accumulation in epilithic, epiphytic and planktonic diatoms, which was carried out in 2012–2013 in the coastal zone of the Puck Lagoon and the Gulf of Gdańsk (southern Baltic). In this coastal area, both micro- and macroorganisms develop particularly intensively. The collected results indicate an increase in Hg concentration in the biofilm during the warm season which, with the lengthening of the vegetative period due to global warming in recent years, is of great significance. As a consequence, the annual mercury load entering the trophic web is larger in comparison with a year in which there is a long, cold winter. An important parameter influencing the accumulation of Hg was the function of those organisms from the biofilm-forming communities. In this case, the highest concentrations of Hg were measured in organisms forming high-profile guilds.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s11270-018-3814-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Effect of Particle Composition and Concentration on the Partitioning Coefficient for Mercury in Three Ocean Basins

“…The first of these two possibilities are more likely as the high Hg fluxes on the Antarctic margin could be due more to high productivity, and therefore high abundance of particulate organic matter, rather than the opal associated with that productivity. Furthermore, diatoms appear to effectively bioaccumulate Hg (Mason et al, 1996;Bełdowska et al, 2018). The lack of a resolved K d contribution from opal in the multivariate linear regression is an expression of an apparent lack of co-variation between K d and f opal and is consistent with both the simple correlation matrix view of the data as well as the PCA, both of which show little co-variation of Hg K d and f opal in the full datasets.…”

“…Here, the partition coefficient (K d ) is defined as the apparent affinity of mercury for marine particles. This concept was inspired from studies of Bacon et al (1976) and Baskaran and Santschi (1993). K d is calculated as:…”

The Relationship between Total Mercury, Its Fractions and Species Diversity of Diatom Taphocoenoses Deposited in Surface Sediments (Southern Baltic Sea)

“…Considering the fact that diatoms constitute one of the most abundant groups of microorganisms in Puck Lagoon and the fact that microorganisms efficiently accumulate Hg, it is possible that they may accumulate a considerable mass of mercury, potentially undergoing biomagnification. Conducted research indicates that Hg concentrations of epilithic diatoms reached lower values compared to the epiphytic and planktic assemblage but reached much higher values than mercury contained in sediments and macroalgae [6].…”

“…Due to their high abundance and frequency of occurrence, diatoms play a major role. Mercury is easily accumulated by diatoms, which create the entry point for the food web [6][7][8]. Diatoms are one of the most numerous groups of microorganisms dominant in terms of biomass abundance [9].…”

Adsorption of cadmium by live and dead biomass of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria

“… 2 More importantly, Cd( ii ) accumulation may also cause health risks in humans through the food chain. 3 For example, an excessive intake of Cd( ii ) can lead to hepatic and renal damage as well as skeletal dysfunctions, such as osteoporosis, cartilage and bone deformities. Therefore, research on the remediation of heavy metal contaminated soil is an urgent and challenging task.…”