Transfer of heavy metals through terrestrial food webs: a review
Date
2015Author
Gall, Jillian E.
Rajakaruna, Nishanta
Boyd, Robert S.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Heavy metals are released into the environment
by both anthropogenic and natural sources. Highly
reactive and often toxic at low concentrations, they may
enter soils and groundwater, bioaccumulate in food
webs, and adversely affect biota. Heavy metals also
may remain in the environment for years, posing longterm
risks to life well after point sources of heavy metal
pollution have been removed. In this review, we compile
studies of the community-level effects of heavy metal
pollution, including heavy metal transfer from soils to
plants, microbes, invertebrates, and to both small and
large mammals (including humans). Many factors contribute
to heavy metal accumulation in animals including
behavior, physiology, and diet. Biotic effects of
heavy metals are often quite different for essential and
non-essential heavy metals, and vary depending on the
specific metal involved. They also differ for adapted
organisms, including metallophyte plants and heavy
metal-tolerant insects, which occur in naturally highmetal
habitats (such as serpentine soils) and have adaptations
that allow them to tolerate exposure to relatively
high concentrations of some heavy metals. Some
metallophyte plants are hyperaccumulators of certain
heavy metals and new technologies using them to clean
metal-contaminated soil (phytoextraction) may offer
economically attractive solutions to some metal pollution
challenges. These new technologies provide incentive
to catalog and protect the unique biodiversity of
habitats that have naturally high levels of heavy metals
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/18784http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10661-015-4436-3
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-015-4436-3