Cycling and Speciation of Mercury in the Food Chain of South Florida

Project Investigators: Carol Kendall, Nancy Simon Project Start Date: 1995 End Date: 2004 Data Metadata Publications

Summary

The goal of this project is to answer the question, "How does mercury produced in the aquatic environment enter the food chain?"

Please note: This project is now part of the "Aquatic Cycling of Mercury in the Everglades (ACME)" project.

Methylmercury, a neurotoxin, is found in the game fish of south Florida. Samples of periphyton, the assemblage of microalgae that live in shallow submerged substrates which is home to, and food for, creatures that are the foundation of the food chain, have concentrations of methylmercury that range from non-detectable to tenths of a part per million on a dry weight basis.

The goal of this project is to answer the question, "How does mercury produced in the aquatic environment enter the food chain and become part of the body burden of animals such as game fish in south Florida?"

Data

• Chemical Analyses of Periphyton (tables 11-15: from OFR 98-76)
• Chemical Analyses of Water (tables 4-10: from OFR 98-76)
• Everglades Water Quality Data (from the data exchange pages)

Metadata

• Cycling and Speciation of Mercury in the Food Chain of South Florida (project metadata)

Publications

Abstracts

• Cycling and Speciation (Variation in Chemical Form) of Mercury in the Food Chain of South Florida
• Cycling and Speciation of Mercury in the Periphyton of the South Florida Ecosystem (from the USGS Mercury Workshop, July 1996)
• Distribution of Mercury in the Periphyton Mats of the South Florida Ecosystem
• Evaluating Food Chain Relations Using Stable Isotopes
• Spatial Changes in Redox Conditions and Food Web Relations at Low and High Nutrient Sites in the Everglades (PDF file from the USGS Water Quality Workshop, October 2000)
• Spatial Distributions of Isotopic Compositions of Gambusia and Periphyton at REMAP Marsh Sites in the Everglades

Fact Sheets

• Isotopic Views of Food Web Structure in the Florida Everglades
• Mercury and Periphyton in the South Florida Ecosystem (FS-184-96)

Open File Reports

• Data for Periphyton and Water Samples Collected from the South Florida Ecosystem, 1995 and 1996

Papers

• Copper, lead, mercury, and zinc in periphyton of the South Florida Ecosystem
• Distribution of and relation among mercury and methylmercury, organic carbon, carbonate, nitrogen and phosphorus, in periphyton of the South Florida Ecosystem

Posters

• Mapping Spatial Variability in Marsh Redox Conditions Using Biomass Stable Isotopic Compositions
• Tracing Foodweb Relations and Fish Migratory Habits in the Everglades with Stable Isotope Techniques (from the South Florida Restoration Science Forum)