Particle (ecology) - Contaminant Kinetics

Contaminant Kinetics

It takes a few days until plankton organisms have filtered the particles and incorporated the toxins into their body fat and tissue: In the southwards flow of the waters of the Hudson off the coast of New Jersey, the highest levels of mercury in copepods have not been found directly in front of the river off New York but 150 km south, off Atlantic City.

Many copepods are then captured by mysidae, krill and smallest fish like the juveniles of atlantic herring - and in each step of the foodchain the toxin concentrations increase by the factor of 10. The milk of mothers (Homo sapiens) consuming fish and related products like margerine and eggs in such areas have so high toxin levels that it would be impossible to sell such milk on markets - their babies have much more birth-defects and/or retarded brains and have later difficulties to learn and/or reproduce. Many die at an early age.

Filter of krill: The first degree filter setae carry in v-form two rows of second degree setae, pointing towards the inside of the feeding basket. The purple ball is one micrometer in size. To display the total area of this fascinating particle filtration structure one would have to tile 7500 times this image.

Filter basket of a mysid. These 3 cm long animals live close to shore and hover above the sea floor, constantly collecting particles. Mysids are an important food source for herring, cod, flounder, striped bass. In polluted areas they have high toxin levelsin their tissue but they are very robust and take a lot of poison before they die. Such filter feeding organisms are the reason that much of the materials we throw in the oceans comes back to us in our food.