Total and methylmercury concentrations were measured in Mississippi grass shrimp (<em>Palaemonetes kadiakensis</em>) that were collected from river, wetland, and open-water habitats in Caddo Lake, Texas. Because grass shrimp are short-lived and relatively immobile, their mercury concentrations are representative of the mercury levels at the location from which they are collected. The highest concentrations of mercury are in grass shrimp collected from the river and the lowest were from open-water habitats. Mercury levels in shrimp collected in the wetland are intermediate between river and open-water habitats but exhibit a large amount of variation suggesting the wetlands of Caddo Lake are quite heterogeneous and require further study to understand their spatial variation. Methylmercury is strongly correlated to total mercury and constitutes 94% of the total mercury regardless of the habitat from which they were collected. This suggests total mercury concentrations are a useful proxy for predicting methylmercury concentrations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-04272008-131417 |
| Date | 27 April 2008 |
| Creators | Sawey, Michael |
| Contributors | Matthew M Chumchal |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/msword |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-04272008-131417/ |
| 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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