Journal article
Longitudinal occurrence of methylmercury in terrestrial ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau
YR Liu, JX Dong, QG Zhang, JT Wang, LL Han, J Zeng, JZ He
Environmental Pollution | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2016
Abstract
Methylmercury (MeHg), a neurotoxin, is a global concern because of its potential risk to human and ecological health. Elevated mercury (Hg) concentrations were recently reported in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) due to increasing Hg input from distant regions, yet little is known about MeHg production and distribution in the terrestrial ecosystems of the TP. Here, we report longitudinal occurrence of MeHg and the factors regulating net MeHg production in 23 grassland sites from eastern to western TP. The soil MeHg content varied from 0.002 to 0.058 ng g−1, with different distribution patterns between the eastern and western TP. There was a positive correlation between the MeHg concentration and th..
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Awarded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Funding Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Shichang Kang in the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for his assistance in measurement of methylmercury. We are also grateful to Xing-Wang Shi for his help in mapping sample location. We thank Dr. Phillip Michael Chalk (The University of Melbourne) and Dr. Aaron M. Jubb (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) for their valuable comments and language improvement on a previous version of this manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41571453 and 41230857).