ASLO 2018 Summer Meeting

Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) 2018 Summer Meeting 
Dates: 10 -15 June 2018
Location: Victoria, BC, Canada

Further information: https://aslo.org/victoria2018/main

GEOTRACES-related sessions:

SS82: EMERGING MODELS OF TRACE METAL BIOAVAILABILITY TO AQUATIC ORGANISMS

David Semeniuk, Minnow Environmental Inc. (dsemeniuk@minnow.ca)
Randelle Bundy, University of Washington (rbundy@uw.edu)
Anne Cremazy, U. British Columbia (acremazy@zoology.ubc.ca)

Well established equilibrium-based trace metal bioavailability models for aquatic organisms (e.g., the Free Ion Activity Model and Biotic Ligand Model) have proven useful for predicting the bioavailability and toxicity of metals in aqueous environments for a variety of organisms, from phytoplankton to fish. These models propose that metal bioavailability is proportional to the concentration of the free metal ion in solution. Thus, given enough information about the chemical environment, one can predict metal bioavailability and potential toxicity. Yet, emerging laboratory and field studies indicate that these models do not accurately predict metal bioavailability under all environmentally realistic conditions, such as when salinity and pH varies, when natural organic ligands and bioavailable metabolites are present, and at low trace metal concentrations (as opposed to high concentrations typical of industrial effluents). In light of this, this session seeks new work that explores modified or alternative models for trace metal bioavailability to aquatic organisms, and their ecological implications. We invite research concerning both experimental and biophysical chemical modeling of trace metal bioavailability, including the roles of chemical speciation, kinetic controls on metal bioavailability, and the influence of metal and organic ligand mixtures on metal speciation, bioavailability and toxicity.