Work

Incorporating concentration-dependent sediment microbial activity into methylmercury production kinetics modeling

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: communities differed between sediment types and their growth followed different trajectories over the course of incubations, potentially contributing to the distinct patterns of MMHg production observed. The general TAM paradigm performed well in describing MMHg production in the sediments. However, the MMHg production and ancillary data suggested the need to revise the model structure to incorporate terms for concentration-dependent microbial activity over the course of the incubations. We modified the TAM to include Monod-type kinetics for methylation and demethylation and observed an improved fit for the carbon-rich, microbially active sediment. Overall our work shows that the TAM can be applied to describe Hg(II) methylation in sediments and that including expressions accounting for concentration-dependent microbial activity can improve the accuracy of the model description of the data in some cases.

Source: Environmental Science Processes & Impacts

DOI: 10.1039/d1em00287b

Authors: Grace E. Schwartz, Katherine A. Muller, Saubhagya S. Rathore, Regina L. Wilpiszeski, Alyssa A. Carrell, Melissa A. Cregger, Dwayne A. Elias, Mircea Podar, Scott L. Painter, Scott C. Brooks

Institutions: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Language: English

Topic: Mercury impact and mitigation studies

Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research, Nuclear Physics

OpenAlex ID: W3210381511

FWCI: 0.2

Cites: 68

Cited by: 2

Related to: 10