Project Description: Marine fish are the main route of exposure of Americans to mercury. It is generally believed that atmospheric deposition is the main route of delivery of mercury to the aquatic environment. The transport and transformation processes connecting atmospheric deposition of mercury to its bioaccumulation in fish are many, complex, and uncertain. As a result, there is debate over whether control of sources of mercury emission to the atmosphere will result in a significant reduction of mercury concentrations in estuarine and marine fish. We will determine if there is a positive relationship between mercury deposition and mercury concentrations in estuarine fish from Maine to Florida along a gradient of declining mercury deposition. This will be done by sampling the estuarine fish, Fundulus heterclitus, and the oyster, Crassostrea virginica, from estuarine sites along most of the atmospheric mercury deposition gradient along the Atlantic seaboard. Sampling and habitat information integration will be performed in partnership with the Research Coordinators at each of the available NOAA NERRS reserves (N=13)
Expected Outcome: Observational relationships between atmospheric mercury deposition and mercury bioaccumulation in sentinal fish along the mid-Atlantic and southeastern U. S. coast will provide a first step in establishing the linkage between mercury source emissions and mercury exposure of coastal fish consumers. Integration of these results into a food web model and mercury emission, deposition, and fate and tronsformation models will permit simulation and prediction of possible changes in mercury concentrations during efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. These results should serve to better manage mercury pollution in this and other estuaries.
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ongoing
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PI: Evans, David-NOAA/NOS/National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
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