Regional distribution of mercury in sediments of the main rivers of French Guiana (Amazonian basin)

Laperche, Valérie; Hellal, Jennifer; Maury-Brachet, Régine; Joseph, Bernard; Laporte, Pierre; Breeze, Dominique; Blanchard, François

doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-322

Cited by 22 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, both anthropogenic and natural sources of mercury are likely to be important to the total mercury levels found (Hacon et al, 2009;Guimarães and Forti, 1999), requiring the use of different methodologies of research (i.e., mercury stable isotopes signatures; Laffont et al, 2011), both in the nearby areas of mining as well as in pristine areas (Laperche et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mercury Contamination within Protected Areas in the Brazilian Northern Amazon-Amapa State

Venturieri¹,

Oliveira‐da‐Costa²,

Gama³

et al. 2017

American Journal of Environmental Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mercury contamination is a long-standing environmental and social problem, notably in the Amazon. The widespread use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining has driven contamination of the environment and the people, threatening biodiversity, human health and livelihoods of traditional populations. Along the border area between Brazil and French Guiana, illegal gold mining is considered a critical threat to biodiversity, a social and economic problem and a political and diplomatic issue. On the Brazilian side in Amapá state, stands the world´s largest tropical forest National Park-Tumucumaque National Park (TNP). Despite its critical importance for the maintenance of ecosystem services, little is known about anthropic impacts in the area, including mercury contamination. The present study aims to assess the current levels of mercury contamination of carnivorous fish species in the TNP region as the starting point for the assessment of its impact over the integrity of protected areas and local communities. Fish samples were collected at 33 sampling sites within TNP and its surroundings. Samples of 187 most consumed local fish belonging to eight carnivore species were analyzed. Mercury was detected in 81% of the collected fish, the majority of them with individual levels above the WHO health safety limit (0.5 µg.g −1 ). Furthermore, samples from all rivers assessed presented some level of contamination. The contamination of important locally consumed fish is widespread in the study area. Important river basins in the Northern Amazon area are affected and even protected areas might be impacted by mercury. Our results suggest mercury as a significant threat to biodiversity and human health in the region. Additional studies should be conducted towards identifying the extent of the problem in the region and mitigation strategies addressing the effects of contamination must be incorporated in decision makers' priority agenda.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mercury Contamination within Protected Areas in the Brazilian Northern Amazon-Amapa State

Venturieri¹,

Oliveira‐da‐Costa²,

Gama³

et al. 2017

American Journal of Environmental Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite this area has the world's largest forest cover (more than 98%), both basins have been increasingly impacted by small-scale gold mining activities in the last 20 years. In addition to contamination, the impact of gold mining also includes deforestation, removal of soils, increase of suspended material in rivers, changes in the hydrological cycle and in rivers geomorphology due to sedimentation, flow modifications, changes in landforms, and land degradation (Laperche et al, 2014). However, although the changes in the riverine regimes seem to be an obvious consequence of gold mining, there are no scientific studies that clearly relate the increase in the suspended material in rivers with the land use changes due to small-scale gold mining activities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of land degradation from mining activities on the sediment fluxes in two large rivers of French Guiana

Gallay¹,

Martinez

Allo

et al. 2018

Land Degrad Dev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We analyzed two contrasting catchments located among the world's largest unspoiled tropical rainforests impacted by mining in the northeastern coastlands of South America. We used the following: (a) mining, agricultural, and urbanized areas to compare the land use evolution with suspended sediments and sediment yields; (b) field monthly river suspended sediments in the two catchments (2004–2015: n = 154); (c) MODIS remote sensing water color technique in the Maroni basin to complete (n = 387) and extend field suspended sediment sampling from 2000 to 2015; (d) hydroclimatic statistical analysis conditions and sediment concentrations to identify the long‐term trends, the abrupt changes in time series and to analyze if the environmental and anthropogenic factors control sediment yield regional variations. No significant long‐term changes were observed in precipitation or water discharge with the Mann–Kendall test. However, the mean suspended sediment concentration has increased significantly (239%) in the Maroni River with a breakpoint in 2009 and decreased (33%) in the Oyapock River (breakpoint in 2008). These differences are explained by the larger percentage of deforestation because of mining activities in the Maroni (0.37%) than in the Oyapock (0.06%) catchment. In the Maroni River, the increasing sediment yield trend (2000–2015) coincide significantly (r2 = 0.97; p < 0.0001) with the increase of 400% of mining areas, whereas no significant relationship with the runoff was found. In the Oyapock River, the runoff explains the sediment yield decreasing trend (r2 = 0.82; p < 0.0001) and no relationship with the land use change was found.

show abstract

“…We hypothesized that the stable prevalence of class 1 integrons in the village and along the transect could be due to a co-selection by mercury. Indeed, the mer operon encoding for mercury resistance has often been described as associated to class 1 integron within the Tn21-like transposon (Skurnik et al, 2006; and this region of French Guiana has been heavily exposed to mercury in the past, because of gold mining prospection (Laperche et al, 2014). This was tested by screening the global Drigalski culture from each sample and the 16 ticarcillin-resistant E. coli strains for merA gene by PCR amplification as described (Deredjian et al, 2011).…”

Section: Detection Of Meramentioning

confidence: 99%

Lack of dissemination of acquired resistance to β‐lactams in small wild mammals around an isolated village in the Amazonian forest

Grall

Barraud

Wieder

et al. 2015

Environ Microbiol Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, we quantitatively evaluated the spread of resistance to β-lactams and of integrons in small rodents and marsupials living at various distances from a point of antibiotic's use. Rectal swabs from 114 animals were collected in Trois-Sauts, an isolated village in French Guiana, and along a 3 km transect heading through the non-anthropized primary forest. Prevalence of ticarcillin-resistant enterobacteria was 36% (41/114). Klebsiella spp., naturally resistant to ticarcillin, were found in 31.1% (23/73) of animals from the village and in an equal ratio of 31.7% (13/41) of animals trapped along the transect. By contrast Escherichia coli with acquired resistance to ticarcillin were found in 13.7% (10/73) of animals from the village and in only 2.4% (1/41) of those from the transect (600 m from the village). There was a huge diversity of E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae strains with very unique and infrequent sequence types. The overall prevalence of class 1 integrons carriage was 19.3% (22/114) homogenously distributed between animals from the village and the transect, which suggests a co-selection by a non-antibiotic environmental factor. Our results indicate that the anthropogenic acquired antibiotic resistance did not disseminate in the wild far from the point of selective pressure.

show abstract

Regional distribution of mercury in sediments of the main rivers of French Guiana (Amazonian basin)

Cited by 22 publications

References 28 publications

Mercury Contamination within Protected Areas in the Brazilian Northern Amazon-Amapa State

Mercury Contamination within Protected Areas in the Brazilian Northern Amazon-Amapa State

Impact of land degradation from mining activities on the sediment fluxes in two large rivers of French Guiana

Lack of dissemination of acquired resistance to β‐lactams in small wild mammals around an isolated village in the Amazonian forest

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About