Production and migration of methylmercury in water-level-fluctuating zone of the Three Gorges Reservoir, China: Dual roles of flooding-tolerant perennial herb.

Water-level-fluctuating zone (WLFZ) is a prevalent water-land ecotone favorable for mercury (Hg) methylation. The succession of flooding tolerance plants in WLFZ gradually changes the landscape, and also brings a new question worth understanding whether these plants would enhance methylmercury (MeHg) production in WLFZ and increase risks to the aquatic environment. Given bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L). Pers) as the dominant perennial herb with high flooding-tolerance in WLFZ of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), we conducted a comprehensive study to investigate its roles in the production and migration of MeHg in WLFZ by field observations and stable isotope tracer experiments. Results showed that both elevated MeHg levels and Hg methylation rates appeared in soil/sediment in bermudagrass growing area, implying that the growth of bermudagrass could significantly enhance MeHg production. However, MeHg migration from sediment to water was restricted during the flooding period of the TGR, as obviously higher partitioning coefficients of MeHg between the sediment and porewater (p <  0.05) and lower MeHg release fluxes were observed in vegetated area, indicating that the presence of bermudagrass instead probably decreased the water MeHg level. Whereas, it is noteworthy that elevated MeHg in soil/sediment induced by the bermudagrass could pose potential risks to the benthos and further to the TGR food chain.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Journal of Hazardous Materials

• Publication date

  2020-01-05

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.120962PMID 31442691
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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