Trace elements in bivalve shells: How “vital effects” can bias environmental studies

Rare Earth Elements in Shells of Black Sea Molluscs: Anomalies and Biogeochemical Implications

“…[66,80], whose shells can contain up to several mg•kg −1 of REE. Bivalves from the Atlantic basin are the poorest in REE although the accumulation in the most long-lived Atlantic species critically depends on their age [77,78]. The intermediate REE levels are observed in the present study in shells of molluscs from the Black Sea (Table 3).…”

“…At the sampling site in the Black Sea, the highest REE contents were noted in shells of the cultivated oyster M. gigas. This may be caused by the older age of this mollusc, which can accumulate trace elements in shells throughout its life like other bivalves [77,78,114]. The highest scandium (Sc) content in shells of the clam A. kagoshimensis may be due to the high specific area of the ribbed shells of this mollusc, given the fact that scandium among all REE forms the most stable complexes with carbonates [115].…”

“…The ratio Y/Ho is considered an important indicator of marine/terrestrial contributions and a provenance proxy for marine biota [3,53,67]. For the oceanic molluscs, its mean value is 55.0 ± 9.3 [71,77,78,91]. For the freshwater molluscs [66], it is lower, 34.8 ± 5.9, due to the terrestrial origin that yields values closer to that of the Upper Continental Crust (25) or chondrites (28).…”

“…REE distribution was studied in marine biogenic carbonate skeletons of microbialites [53][54][55], corals [56][57][58][59][60][61] and foraminifera [62][63][64][65] in relation to their environment. There are a number of studies on the accumulation of REE in freshwater and marine molluscs in their natural habitat [4,[66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81] and on REE effects on molluscs exposed to these metals in laboratory conditions [82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89]. In some studies [68,78], it was found that the REE composition of shells of bivalves matched that of seawater, which implied the possibility of using shells as biomonitors of REE pollution in the marine environment.…”

“…Yb . Er⁄ plotted against the La Yb ⁄ ratio for shells of different molluscs from the World Ocean[66,68,71,[76][77][78][79]91]. Meth = methanotrophic and Thio = thiotrophic symbiont mussels.…”