Methyl mercury bioaccumulation, a study of factors influencing uptake and elimination in fish

Abstract

This research examined aspects of MeHg bioaccumulation in juvenile salmonids (Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar and rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss). The first aspect studied was the interaction of growth and MeHg bioaccumulation in short-term growth exposures. In two experiments using four different concentrations of dietary MeHg, it was found that rapidly growing fish actually accumulated Hg faster than slow growing fish. However, accumulation efficiency decreased inversely with ration; per unit of growth, slow growing fish accumulated MeHg with efficiencies approaching 100%, while for fish growing at 50 mg.g-1.d-1, accumulation efficiency dropped to less than 20%.