CADMIUM ACCUMULATION BY INVERTEBRATES LIVING AT THE SEDIMENT-WATER INTERFACE

摘要

Benthic animals can take up trace metals both from the sediment compartment in which they burrow and from the water column compartment above their burrows(we define both compartments as containing water and particles). If criteria for the protection of benthic animals are based on metal concentrations in one of these two compartments, then it should first be demonstrated that the majority of the metal taken up by these animals comes from the given compartment. To determine whether benthic animals take up the majority of their cadmium(Cd)from the sediment compartment, we created a Cd gradient in lake sediment and compared Cd accumulation by the invertebrates colonizing these sediments with Cd concentrations in the sediment compartment.