Get Methylmercury Is The Predominant Form Of Mercury In Bird Eggs: A

How does mercury get into lakes and streams? The main source to most aquatic environments in the U.S. is from atmospheric deposition (rain, snow, dry particles). Some water bodies also receive mercury from direct discharge of industrial wastes, mining wastes, or naturally occurring mercury minerals.

Bacteria either keep methyl-mercury in their cells or excrete it into the water where it is taken up by other microscopic plants and animals. Biomagnification occurs when larger organisms consume the microscopic plants and animals and take up all of the methyl-mercury in the small organisms.

Field and laboratory studies have found high mercury burdens in birds to result in lethargy, loss of appetite, and reduced motivation to forage.

Birds that ate fish or other animals had the greatest mercury concentrations, whereas birds that ate plants and seeds exhibited the lowest mercury concentrations. This study used a new model to translate published mercury toxicity benchmarks across bird tissues into a common blood-equivalent mercury concentration.

Methylmercury is used in fluorescent lights, batteries, and polyvinyl chloride. It is a common pollutant of air and water.

Methylmercury [CH3Hg] is the most toxic form. It affects the immune system, alters genetic and enzyme systems, and damages the nervous system, including coordination and the senses of touch, taste, and sight.

Methylmercury is formed from inorganic mercury by the action of microbes that live in aquatic systems including lakes, rivers, wetlands, sediments, soils and the open ocean. This methylmercury production has been primarily attributed to anaerobic bacteria in the sediment.

Over several summers, they took samples from 70 species of birds. They discovered that the songbirds got their mercury from eating spiders, and that some were more highly exposed than fish-eating birds.