Heather Talley UR- Would you like some metal with your aphrodisiac?

Oysters in lab

While conducting my research on cadmium and its effects on the sediments I came across an interesting article, “Rising temperatures toxic for sea-dwellers.” The article was about a study that was conducted to measure the effects that global climate change will have on organism’s sensitivity to toxins in the water. Though it doesn’t necessarily have to do with sediments there has been a lot of talk about global climate change lately in class and I thought it was really neat to see the effects global climate change will have on cadmium toxicity. The researcher’s experiment consisted of measuring the metabolic rates and the ability to synthesis ATP (the main energy in a cell) of eastern oysters at different temperatures in both clean water as well as water that was polluted with the heavy metal cadmium. What the researchers found was that during increased temperatures the toxic effects of the cadmium also increased in the oysters by limiting their ability to synthesis ATP making the organism less likely to survive due to an energy deficit. If that isn’t bad enough the increase in temperatures also increase the speed of metal intake of the organism leading to an increase of accumulation of the toxin in the organism. 

 

Oysters are known for two things, being an aphrodisiac and producing pearls. I bet you didn't know that that pearl was once a little piece of debris that found its way into the shell. Maybe even some toxic sediment is to thank for that pretty necklace. Sediments are not just a place for organisms and plants to live, sediments can also be a pollutant. When sediments are washed into a river by storm

Sedimentation in Chattahoochee River, Atlanta, Georgia

drainage they will carry all the pollutants from the roads into the water and can also cause habitat loss on shorelines when water levels increase from the increased sediment. The part that caught my attention is that when that sediment reaches the water what is it going to do? Is it going to immediately settle out to the bottom nice and neatly? Maybe in as perfect world but here in reality it will become suspended solids in the water. Sediment particles absorb sunlight and increase the water’s temperature, one of the pollutants found in the storm water runoff are cigarette butts that leach out cadmium… do you see where I am going with this? It would be interesting to break away from the global climate change idea and do an experiment with the increased temperatures caused by sedimentation, I wonder if it also has an effect on the toxicity of cadmium. I think it will be an interesting study to do in the future if I do find that cigarette butts are leaching cadmium into the sediments.