Methyl mercury (MeHg) is one of the most hazardous contaminants in the environment, adversely affecting both human and wildlife health. Recent studies have demonstrated that aquatic insects biotransport MeHg and other contaminants to terrestrial consumers, but the factors that regulate the flux of MeHg out of aquatic ecosystems via emergent insects have not been studied. I used experimental mesocosms to test the hypothesis that insect emergence and the associated flux of MeHg from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems is affected by both bottom-up nutrient effects and top-down fish consumer effects. Nutrient addition led to an increase in MeHg flux primarily by enhancing the biomass of emerging MeHg-contaminated insects, while fish decreased MeHg flux primarily by reducing the biomass of emerging insects. These factors were interdependent such that the nutrients effects were more pronounced when fish were absent and the fish effects were more pronounced when nutrients concentrations were high.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-05232013-110719 |
| Date | 23 May 2013 |
| Creators | Jones, Taylor Alaine |
| Contributors | Matthew M Chumchal, Ray W Drenner, Amanda M Hale |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-05232013-110719/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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