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Methylmercury Bioaccumulation in an Urban Estuary: Delaware River, USA

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Abstract

Spatial variation in mercury (Hg) and methylmercury (MeHg) bioaccumulation in urban coastal watersheds reflects complex interactions between Hg sources, land use, and environmental gradients. We examined MeHg concentrations in fauna from the Delaware River estuary, and related these measurements to environmental parameters and human impacts on the waterway. The sampling sites followed a north to south gradient of increasing salinity, decreasing urban influence, and increasing marsh cover. Although mean total Hg in surface sediments (top 4 cm) peaked in the urban estuarine turbidity maximum and generally decreased downstream, surface sediment MeHg concentrations showed no spatial patterns consistent with the examined environmental gradients, indicating urban influence on Hg loading to the sediment but not subsequent methylation. Surface water particulate MeHg concentration showed a positive correlation with marsh cover whereas dissolved MeHg concentrations were slightly elevated in the estuarine turbidity maximum region. Spatial patterns of MeHg bioaccumulation in resident fauna varied across taxa. Small fish showed increased MeHg concentrations in the more urban/industrial sites upstream, with concentrations generally decreasing farther downstream. Invertebrates either showed no clear spatial patterns in MeHg concentrations (blue crabs, fiddler crabs) or increasing concentrations further downstream (grass shrimp). Best-supported linear mixed models relating tissue concentration to environmental variables reflected these complex patterns, with species specific model results dominated by random site effects with a combination of particulate MeHg and landscape variables influencing bioaccumulation in some species. The data strengthen accumulating evidence that bioaccumulation in estuaries can be decoupled from sediment MeHg concentration, and that drivers of MeHg production and fate may vary within a small region.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank A. Schartup for assistance with field collections and C. McCleery, V. Ortiz, and N. Mazrui for assistance with sample processing. R. Greene provided valuable suggestions to improve the manuscript, as did three anonymous reviewers. We acknowledge help from the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC). This work was funded by grants from The USDA Forest Service (Nislow, 09-JV-11242307-124), NIEHS (Chen, R01 ES021950), and NIH/NIEHS (Stanton P42 ES007373).

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  1. Hannah Broadley

    Present address: Biology Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Kate Buckman, Hannah Broadley & Celia Chen

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Vivien Taylor

  3. Department of Biology, Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD, USA

    Daniel Hocking

  4. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT, USA

    Prentiss Balcom & Rob Mason

  5. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Prentiss Balcom

  6. Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Amherst, MA, USA

    Keith Nislow

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  1. Kate Buckman
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Communicated by Wen-Xiong Wang

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Buckman, K., Taylor, V., Broadley, H. et al. Methylmercury Bioaccumulation in an Urban Estuary: Delaware River, USA. Estuaries and Coasts 40, 1358–1370 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-017-0232-3

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