MSU Professor's Research on Mercury Emissions in Wetlands Receives Media Coverage

Contact: Jessica A. Knoblauch, News Writer for Environmental Science and Policy Program: (517) 432-3823 or knoblau7@msu.edu

October 25, 2006

The presence of mercury in humans and animals has gotten a lot of attention lately and the concern is certainly understandable. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), exposure to mercury at any age level can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system.

Traditionally, the major source of mercury contamination has been fossil fuels. Mercury poses no health threat to humans while lying stagnate in fossil fuels such as coal, but once coal is burned, mercury is released into the atmosphere and eventually falls to the earth, where it comes in contact with certain micro-organisms in soils and sediments. Fish and other animals then eat these organisms, the mercury gets stored in the animal's fat tissue, and the mercury slowly makes its way up the food chain to humans.

However, research done by Dr. Merritt Turetsky, assistant professor of Wetland Ecology at Michigan State University, recently added another twist to the mercury issue. Her research suggests that a surprising ecosystem-peat accumulating wetlands in northern regions- could present a dangerous ticking time bomb for mercury.

Turetsky reported new results on this topic in two papers recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Both papers address changes in wildfire regimes in northern regions and how they could influence global biogeochemical cycles of elements like mercury.

Turetsky began this research after finishing her graduate work at the University of Alberta in Canada in 2002. While there, Turetsky investigated the role peatlands play in a changing climate and the impact that permafrost degradation and wildfires have on peatland carbon sequestration. She continued her wetland research during her post-doc work at the U.S. Geological Survey where she expanded her research program into Alaska and Siberia. Throughout her projects, Turetsky and her colleagues measured the amount of mercury stored in soils and vegetation of forests and peatlands. Her latest work estimates how much of that mercury is released into the atmosphere during fire events.

"Peatlands provide important ecosystem service by acting as a sponge and storing large amounts of both carbon and mercury from the atmosphere. They essentially have offset some of the emissions (between 20 and 40 percent) we've been sending into the air since the Industrial Revolution," says Turetsky.

However, increases in fire frequency due to global warming could change all that. Turetsky's research shows that the boreal region recently has experienced a doubling of annual burned area and more than a doubling of the frequency of larger fire years." As fires increase in size and severity, the depth of burning of organic layers in peatlands increase, thereby releasing increasingly larger amounts of the mercury stored in the peat. As a result, increased burning may soon change the boreal wetlands delicate role as emissions absorbers to hot spots for the release of atmospheric mercury.

Because of the concern of mercury's affects on human health and mounting evidence that climate change is indeed happening, Turetsky's research has been receiving a lot of attention from the media lately. The coverage started with an article in Science News, a weekly newsmagazine covering research in science. Since then, Turetsky has done an interview with AAAS Science Live radio. Her work has also been featured in the Christian Science Monitor as well as a recent TIME magazine article titled "Mercury Rising."

The Canadian Press has also taken note of Turetsky's research. Unsurprisingly, considering that approximately half of the entire world's peatland is located in Canada, and given Turetsky's work on Canadian peatlands. Recently a writer with the Canadian Press covered her articles, and the story was featured in newspapers across Canada.

Turetsky says that the recent coverage has been very exciting. "It's a real thrill to hear your research discussed by the media and the public," says Turetsky. "I also appreciate MSU's commitment to communication. On this tough issue (health and climate change), the university media office did a fantastic job."

Though it seems as though the excitement has just started to die down, Turetsky is already looking to future projects. "Since fires are expected to burn hotter during longer fire seasons across all of boreal North America, we'll continue to focus on fire weather controls on fuel combustion in upland forests and wetlands, and what this means for the release of mercury and greenhouse gases," says Turetsky.

Her research team will also investigate controls on mercury release into aquatic systems and its conversion to toxic methyl-mercury, a highly toxic form of mercury that builds up in fish, shellfish and animals that eat fish, according to the EPA. A new member of the Turetsky lab, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Evan Kane, plans to look at the effects of permafrost and wetland extent on total and methyl-mercury fluxes to Alaskan streams.

Turetsky hopes that her projects together will lead to a better understanding of natural and human related sources of mercury in aquatic systems. "We've suggested that mercury is going to serve as an unfortunate thermometer for climate change," says Turetsky. She adds that "as temperatures increase along with fire cycles, so too will mercury in our environments." That's one environmental thermometer that clearly deserves more attention.