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PubTalk 9/200 — Toxic Mercury in Aquatic Ecosystems

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Detailed Description

Why Quality Trumps Quantity

by Mark Marvin-DiPasquale, Microbial Ecologist

  • Different mercury sources generate different forms of mercury with different environmental consequences
  • Learn how mercury is transported and transformed in air and water, and how it ultimately accumulates as toxic methylmercury in wildlife and humans
  • How do mercury-methylating bacteria react with "new" mercury from atmospheric deposition and with "old" mercury from remobilized sediments?
  • Why are fish in Florida's Everglades as contaminated with mercury as those in San Francisco Bay, even though total mercury inputs are much higher in the Bay?
  • How do differences in landscape and vegetation type affect mercury cycling and bioaccumulation pathways?

Details

Length:
01:29:06

Sources/Usage

Public Domain.