Search results for "Mercury pollution"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
Analysis of Mercury Pollution in Air in Urban Area of Riga Using Atomic Absorption Spectrometry
2015
Toxicity of mercury and its compounds is well known, and they are considered as substances of heightened concern. Though mercury is to some extent released into the environment by natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, additional releases from anthropogenic sources have increased the environmental exposure and deposition significantly. There are many commonly used items containing mercury, for instance, mercury light bulbs, switches, and mercury thermometers, the disposal of which into trashcans can cause an increase of mercury concentration in the air of the local area. The paper reports mercury pollution surveys performed in several districts of Riga (the capital of Latvia). Using …
Assessing the effect of mercury pollution on cultured benthic foraminifera using DNA metabarcoding and morphological approaches
2016
Heavy metals such as mercury (Hg) occur in ecosystems from both natural sources and human activities, with large variations in concentrations and pose a significant health hazard through bioaccumulation and biomagnification. The aim of this experimental study is to assess the impact of different concentrations of Hg through time on the diversity of cultured benthic foraminifera. Tanks with concentrations of Hg up to 100 ppm were considered. Mesocosms containing 1-cm-thick sediment from each tank were subsampled at pre-established time intervals for geochemical (Hg content), morphological and molecular analyses. Morphological analyses were based on both Rose Bengal and the CellTracker Green …
Assessing the effect of mercury pollution on cultured benthic foraminifera community using morphological and eDNA metabarcoding approaches
2018
Mercury (Hg) is a highly toxic element for living organisms and is known to bioaccumulate and biomagnify. Here, we analyze the response of benthic foraminifera communities cultured in mesocosm and exposed to different concentrations of Hg. Standard morphological analyses and environmental DNA metabarcoding show evidence that Hg pollution has detrimental effects on benthic foraminifera. The molecular analysis provides a more complete view of foraminiferal communities including the soft-walled single-chambered monothalamiids and small-sized hard-shelled rotaliids and textulariids than the morphological one. Among these taxa that are typically overlooked in morphological studies we found poten…