{"id":1393,"date":"2020-02-12T14:41:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T13:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.ostersjostiftelsen.se\/?post_type=project&#038;p=1393"},"modified":"2020-12-10T10:29:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T09:29:29","slug":"bacteria-driven-hg-methylation-in-microbiome-of-lower-consumers","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/dev.ostersjostiftelsen.se\/en\/project\/bacteria-driven-hg-methylation-in-microbiome-of-lower-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacteria-driven Hg methylation in microbiome of lower consumers\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mercury (Hg) remobilized from the earth crust by natural and anthropogenic processes and methylated in natural environments can become bioaccumulated in aquatic food webs to concentrations of concern for human and wildlife heath. Today, Hg and&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;concentrations in&nbsp;the Baltic fish and mussels exceed the thresholds compliant with good environmental status. To understand the risks and develop adequate mitigation strategies, we need to understand production and accumulation pathways related to&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;levels in aquatic food webs. We hypothesize that Hg-methylating&nbsp;bacteria inhabiting guts of invertebrates in the lower food webs is an ecologically plausible source of their&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;body burden and thus&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;entering the food web. I will test this hypothesis using molecular techniques, PCR and sequencing, to identify the&nbsp;hgcAB&nbsp;genes and their carriers in the dissected guts of amphipods, with&nbsp;particular emphasis&nbsp;on interspecific (geographic and ontogenetic) and intraspecific variability. A laboratory experiment will be conducted to evaluate effects of dietary uptake of Hg on the&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;levels in amphipods and, thus, examine whether endogenous Hg methylation can occur. Using field data and laboratory experiments, a relationship between the&nbsp;hgcAB&nbsp;abundance in the gut microbiome and animal&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;body burden will be established. To our knowledge, this is a first study addressing endogenous methylation in benthic invertebrates as a&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;source in ecosystem. These findings will provide crucial insights on the origin and pathways of&nbsp;MeHg&nbsp;in aquatic food webs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-1393","project","type-project","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.ostersjostiftelsen.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.ostersjostiftelsen.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.ostersjostiftelsen.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/project"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.ostersjostiftelsen.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}