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Mercury and methylmercury in aquatic sediment across western North America

Overview of attention for article published in Science of the Total Environment, April 2016
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Title
Mercury and methylmercury in aquatic sediment across western North America
Published in
Science of the Total Environment, April 2016
DOI 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.03.044
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jacob A. Fleck, Mark Marvin-DiPasquale, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Joshua T. Ackerman, Michelle A. Lutz, Michael Tate, Charles N. Alpers, Britt D. Hall, David P. Krabbenhoft, Chris S. Eckley

Abstract

Large-scale assessments are valuable in identifying primary factors controlling total mercury (THg) and monomethyl mercury (MeHg) concentrations, and distribution in aquatic ecosystems. Bed sediment THg and MeHg concentrations were compiled for >16,000 samples collected from aquatic habitats throughout the West between 1965 and 2013. The influence of aquatic feature type (canals, estuaries, lakes, and streams), and environmental setting (agriculture, forest, open-water, range, wetland, and urban) on THg and MeHg concentrations was examined. THg concentrations were highest in lake (29.3±6.5μgkg(-1)) and canal (28.6±6.9μgkg(-1)) sites, and lowest in stream (20.7±4.6μgkg(-1)) and estuarine (23.6±5.6μgkg(-1)) sites, which was partially a result of differences in grain size related to hydrologic gradients. By environmental setting, open-water (36.8±2.2μgkg(-1)) and forested (32.0±2.7μgkg(-1)) sites generally had the highest THg concentrations, followed by wetland sites (28.9±1.7μgkg(-1)), rangeland (25.5±1.5μgkg(-1)), agriculture (23.4±2.0μgkg(-1)), and urban (22.7±2.1μgkg(-1)) sites. MeHg concentrations also were highest in lakes (0.55±0.05μgkg(-1)) and canals (0.54±0.11μgkg(-1)), but, in contrast to THg, MeHg concentrations were lowest in open-water sites (0.22±0.03μgkg(-1)). The median percent MeHg (relative to THg) for the western region was 0.7%, indicating an overall low methylation efficiency; however, a significant subset of data (n>100) had percentages that represent elevated methylation efficiency (>6%). MeHg concentrations were weakly correlated with THg (r(2)=0.25) across western North America. Overall, these results highlight the large spatial variability in sediment THg and MeHg concentrations throughout western North America and underscore the important roles that landscape and land-use characteristics have on the MeHg cycle.

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Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 67 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 1%
Canada 1 1%
Unknown 65 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 14 21%
Student > Master 14 21%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 9%
Student > Bachelor 6 9%
Other 8 12%
Unknown 11 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Environmental Science 26 39%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 5 7%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 5 7%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 6%
Chemistry 4 6%
Other 3 4%
Unknown 20 30%