Journal
BULLETIN OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION AND TOXICOLOGY
Volume 107, Issue 5, Pages 801-808Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00128-021-03274-9
Keywords
Mercury; Methylmercury; Bioaccumulation; Biomagnification; Invertebrates; Risk assessment
Categories
Funding
- Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [UIDB/00100/2020]
- Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery grants
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This review examines bioaccumulation of MeHg in freshwater invertebrates, particularly insects, highlighting the lack of robust environmental data in many studies. Providing physical and chemical characteristics of study sites is important for examining MeHg bioaccumulation and biomagnification, which will improve future mercury risk assessment analyses.
Methylmercury (MeHg) is a toxic and bioaccumulative organo-metallic compound that is naturally produced in many ecosystems. Organisms that occupy the lower trophic positions in food webs may be key factors in the assessment of MeHg biomagnification between ecosystems. Here we present a review of the peer-reviewed literature examining MeHg bioaccumulation in freshwater invertebrates, focused principally on insects. This review aims to characterize the invertebrates that bioaccumulate higher MeHg concentrations and therefore pose a higher risk to upper trophic levels and to clarify which ecosystems are more susceptible to bioaccumulation in lower trophic levels. However, we found that few studies provided robust environmental data (notably water chemistry) as part of their papers, dramatically limiting our ability to test for factors that might contribute to different concentrations of MeHg in invertebrates. We highlight the importance of providing physical and chemical characteristics of study sites in publications examining MeHg bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Adopting the proposed recommendations will improve the available information for future mercury risk assessment analyses.
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