Mercury distribution with size between the tissues of the northern quahog (= hard clam) (Mercenaria mercenaria)

Details

• Journal Title:
  Environmental Pollution
• Personal Author:
  Hansen, Gunnar ; Shumway, Sandra E. ; Mason, Robert P. ; Baumann, Zofia
• NOAA Program & Office:
  Sea Grant
• Description:
  Elevation of toxic metal mercury (Hg) in coastal waters is influenced by anthropogenic activities, with detrimental impacts on both wildlife and human health (Mason and Gill, 2005; Chen et al., 2012). There are multiple chemical forms of Hg present in the environment, including both inorganic mercury (iHg) and methylmercury (MeHg). While both forms are toxic, MeHg is cause for greater concern due to its efficient accumulation and transfer to higher trophic levels (Bryan and Darracott, 1979; Fitzgerald et al., 2007; Mason et al., 2012). When dissolved in seawater iHg and MeHg are efficiently taken up by unicellular phytoplankton (Mason et al., 1995; Lee and Fisher, 2016), and transferred to their consumers, i.e., planktivorous organisms, both sessile suspension feeders such as bivalve molluscs, and zooplankton (Blackmore and Wang, 2004; Hammerschmidt and Fitzgerald, 2006; Pan and Wang, 2011). MeHg is transferred efficiently in the food web, while iHg is not. This efficient transfer of MeHg from seawater to phytoplankton, and then from lower to higher trophic levels results in the highest MeHg concentrations being found in fish and other marine predators, while iHg represents a very small fraction in fish tissues. Additionally, %MeHg in muscle tissue is high (>90 %; Bloom, 1992; Baumann et al., 2017; Anatone et al., 2020) and this might be caused by the binding between MeHg and thiol groups in proteins (Bradley et al., 2017; Man et al., 2019). Since the analysis of THg is much simpler, compared to the more tedious analysis of MeHg, many studies report only THg for fish, and often as well for bivalve molluscs (e.g. Paulson et al., 2003; Sarkar et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2017; Costa et al., 2020). Yet, the variability in %MeHg values can be very high in bivalve molluscan tissues, as demonstrated by Hansen et al. (2024), and analysis of both THg and MeHg is needed to gain more insight into the cycling of iHg and MeHg in tissues.
• Source:
  Environmental Pollution, 375, 126287
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2025.126287
• ISSN:
  0269-7491
• Format:
  pdf
• Publisher:
  Elsevier BV
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Rights Information:
  Accepted Manuscript
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c8b67cc146fcdcdf92470c6d5c2d11f9225e0b405e0253ef09618695b4f7bb7e473a5ee9e4e0e58d9e8ec9a79a4db87bf3f0ca6a53f777bfd4c9dc23dfa656ca
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/72191/noaa_72191_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.14 MB ]