Journal
ECOTOXICOLOGY
Volume 19, Issue 8, Pages 1416-1425Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10646-010-0526-8
Keywords
Insect; Diversity; Heavy metal; Mining
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
A century of heavy metal mining in the western United States has left a legacy of abandoned mines. While large operations have left a visible reminder, smaller one and two-man operations have been overgrown and largely forgotten. We revisited an area of northern Idaho that has not had active mining since at least 1932 and probably since 1910. At three sites along each of 10 mountain streams we sampled larval stream insects and correlated their community diversity to stream levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead, zinc, pH, temperature, oxygen content, and conductivity. Although the streams appear pristine, multivariate statistics indicated that cadmium and zinc levels were significantly correlated with fewer animals, fewer families, a smaller percentage of plecopterans (stoneflies), and lower Shannon H diversity values. After at least 75 years, abandoned mines appear to be still influencing stream communities.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available