Wild fig tree rings offer a cheap method for tracking toxic atmospheric mercury, a byproduct of gold mining in the Global South, according to a study conducted in the Peruvian Amazon and published April 8 in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.
Wild fig tree rings offer a cheap method for tracking toxic atmospheric mercury, a byproduct of gold mining in the Global South, according to a study conducted in the Peruvian Amazon and published April 8 in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.
Computer models suggest that atmospheric mercury can potentially travel across the globe, to be deposited back in landscapes, though more study is needed to verify how far it spreads. When it falls to the ground or in water, it can accumulate in organisms such as fish and other food sources, where it acts as a neurotoxin to both humans and wildlife.
Environmentalists and scientists may now establish biomonitoring networks with wild fig trees (Ficus insipida) in order to better understand how mercury spreads over time and space.
“We’re trying to reduce emissions, especially from gold mining, as part of the United Nations Minamata Convention on Mercury, and in order to do that, we need to be able to measure it, to see the impact over time,” said Jacqueline Gerson, the study’s corresponding author and assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “This really offers a method that can be employed throughout the Global South to understand changes in mercury over time, as well as spatial indicators of mercury.”
Read more at Cornell University
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