海洋中の有機炭素とメチル水銀の関係についての研究
- 研究者たちは、有機炭素の微粒子が海洋中でメチル水銀を生成する土台となる可能性を見つけた。
- これにより、メチル水銀が水中に再放出される。
- これは気候変動や水銀循環に関連し、温暖で生産性の高い海洋では、より多くのメチル水銀が人間の食卓に蓄積される可能性がある。
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Sunderland’s team also found a relationship between levels of methylated mercury and organic carbon. Particles of organic carbon from phytoplankton or other sources may provide surfaces on which microbes could methylate mercury in the ocean, the researchers suggest. That methylated mercury could then be released back into the water. “We don’t have a causal mechanism yet, but it does seem to be linked to the biological pump in the ocean,” says Sunderland. Previous findings in the southern and equatorial Pacific, she adds, observed similar high methylmercury concentrations where biological activity was highest. That connection has implications for climate change and the mercury cycle: warmer, more productive oceans, with more phytoplankton and more fish, might increase the amount of methylated mercury that ends up on human plates. The researchers also hypothesize that waters in the western Pacific could be picking up mercury deposited from increasing atmospheric emissions in Asia, and then moving to the northeast Pacific. The ocean may only how be responding to higher mercury loads from past atmospheric deposition, Sunderland says. Daniel Cossa of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) in LA Seyne-sur-Mer and his colleagues have gathered another set of mercury data, this time from the Mediterranean, to be published in the May issue of Limnology and Oceanography. Both papers indicate that not all methylated mercury comes direct from coastal or river sources, and confirm that methylation occurs at moderate depth in oceans, says Cossa’s co-author Nicola Pirrone, director of Italy’s National Research Council Institute for Atmospheric Pollution in Rende. よろしくお願いしますorz
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サンダーランドのチームは、メチル水銀と有機炭素、それぞれのレベル間での関係性も発見しました。 研究者によると、植物性プランクトンやその他の供給源によって生産された有機炭素の粒子（※1）は、海洋において微生物が水銀をメチル化できる表層を提供するとのことです。 メチル水銀はその後もう一度海中に放出される可能性があります。 「我々はまだ原因メカニズムが何かはつかんでいません。ですが海洋の生物ポンプ（※2）に関連しているらしいです。」とサンダーランドは言います。 彼女は、南および赤道付近の太平洋における過去の調査結果では、生物学的活動がもっとも高い地域で同様の高いメチル水銀濃度が観測されたと付け加えます。 そのつながりは気候変動と水銀サイクルの為の意味合いを有します。つまり、より多くの植物性プランクトンや魚が生息する、より暖かく生産性の高い海は、人間の体内に取り込まれるメチル水銀の量を増加させるかもしれないということです。 加えて研究者達は、西太平洋の海水はアジアでの増加する大気放出物質より堆積した水銀を拾い上げ東北太平洋まで運ぶことができるのではとの仮説を立てています。 おそらく海だけが過去の大気降下物に含まれるより高い水銀量に対応できるのだろうとサンダーランドは言います。 ラ・セーヌ＝シュル＝メール（※3）にあるフランス国立海洋研究所(IFREMER)のダニエル・コッサとその同僚は、今度は地中海から、「陸水学と海洋学」5月号に発表されるもうひとつの水銀データを集めました。 両方の論文が、すべてのメチル水銀が沿岸や川などの水源から直接運ばれてくるのではないことを示し、メチル化（※4）は海の中間深度で起ることを裏付けていると、レンデにあるイタリア大気汚染国立研究協議会研究所所長で、コッサの共同執筆者、ニコラ・ピオーネは述べています。 ※1：粒状有機炭素とも言われます。 ※2：大気中の二酸化炭素が、海洋に溶けるという形で吸収→表層に存在する植物プランクトンの光合成によって有機物の粒子に固定→この粒子が中深層へ沈降→海洋が生物的に二酸化炭素を吸収。この一連の能力を「生物ポンプ」と呼びます。 ※3：位置については下記をご参照ください。 http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BB%E3%82%BB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8C%EF%BC%9D%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%83%AB%EF%BC%9D%E3%83%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB ※4：仕組みについては下記をご参照ください。 http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A1%E3%83%81%E3%83%AB%E5%8C%96
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また、サンダ－ランドのチームは、メチル水銀のレベルと有機炭素のレベルとの間にも関係があることを発見した。 プランクトン、あるいは他の源からの有機炭素粒子は、微生物が海洋の水銀をメチル化する表面を提供するのではないかと、調査者たちは言う。 こうして出来たメチル水銀は海水に戻される可能性がある。 「まだ、この原因究明には至っていないが、海洋の生物的ポンプに関係があると思う」とサンダーランドは言う。 彼女はさらに「南洋および赤道付近の太平洋での過去の調査は、生物学的活動が最も活発な海域では、（この調査）同様に高いメチル水銀の集積が見られた」と加える。 この関係は、気候変化と水銀周期との間に関係がある、すなわち、より暖かく生産が活発で、プランクとが多く、魚も多い海洋からは、人間の食卓に昇るメチル水銀の量も多いことになる。 この調査団は、太平洋西部の水は、アジアからの排気に含まれる水銀を吸収し、北部太平洋に移動させるという仮説も立てている。 大洋は、過去の大気中のより高い水銀量を反映しているに過ぎないのではないか、とサンダーランドは言う。 LA Seyne-sur-Mer にある、フランス海洋開発研究所 (IFREMER) のダニエル•コスタと彼の調査団は、水銀に関して又別の資料を集めている、これは地中海から取った資料で Limnology and Oceanography の５月号に掲載される。 この二つの研究は、すべての水銀が、沿岸、あるいは河川に直接源泉を有するとは限らず、海洋の中間深度の部分でメチル水銀が形成される、とコスタの共著者で、レンデ（Rende） にあるイタリア国立大気汚染研究所の所長ニコラ•ピローネは言う。
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Mercury levels in the Pacific Ocean are rising, a new study suggests. The increase may mean that more methylmercury, a human neurotoxin formed when mercury is methylated by microbes, accumulates in marine fish such as tuna. The research comes as researchers and policymakers, who have tended to focus on atmospheric concentrations of the element, are looking for a fuller picture of the mercury cycle. US guidelines on methylmercury in fish are currently under review. It remains unclear exactly how atmospheric mercury ― whether dumped directly into oceans or carried there through rivers or coastal deposits ― is methylated and eventually taken up by fish, which are a major source of human exposure to methylmercury. But the new data, collected by Elsie Sunderland of Harvard University and colleagues, also provide a possible mechanism for mercury methylation within the ocean. The researchers collected samples from the eastern North Pacific, an area also monitored by research cruises in 1987 and 2002. They estimate that methylated mercury accounts for as much as 29% of all mercury in subsurface ocean waters, with lower concentrations occurring in deeper water masses. The group’s modeling indicates that atmospheric deposition of the total ocean mercury concentrations recorded in the mid-1990s by 2050. よろしくお願いします( ´_ゝ｀)
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“The ocean is a dig missing part” of the mercury cycle, says Pirrone, who also headed the United Nations Environment Programme’s scientific assessment last year for future mercury policy making. Robie Macdonald, an Arctic mercury specialist at Canada’s department of oceans and fisheries, says that although mercury in the atmosphere has increased by about 400%in the past 100-150 years, concentrations seem to have risen by only about 30% in the oceans. “We’ve been so busy looking at the atmosphere, not really looking at the oceans,” he says. “Both papers are really important in terms of changing community attention to what mercury does and its risks.” Any control measures on methlmercury, however, must take into account how much comes, unavoidably, from natural sources and how much is from anthropogenic sources such as the combustion of fossil fuels, points out Pirrone. And controversy continues on that score. A lack of data on changes in methylmercury levels in fish, and on natural or anthropogenic origins of the compound, led to a California court decision in March 2009 that allowed tuna-canning companies to avoid labeling methylmercury levels in their fish products. The US Food and Drug Administration is currently evaluating its guidelines on the risks of consuming methylmercury in fish. よろしくお願いします＾＾；
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Methylation is a chemical process in which a methyl(CH3)group is added to an atom or molecule. The resulting compound does not usually dissolve in water and is more easily absorbed into organisms such as plankton. Methylmercury is very dangerous because it enters the food chain as soon as it is absorbed into plankton. Next, it ends up in a fish that eats the contaminated plankton. After the contaminated fish is eaten by another fish, the methylmercury stays in the surviving fish's flesh, and the cycle may be repeated over and over. Once the mercury reaches the top of the food chain, for example in a 300-kilogram tuna, it will stay there for the rest of the fish's life. As a result, people are very worried about the effect of eating fish that are high on the food chain or very old. These fish may have very high accumulations of mercury, and thus may be dangerous to eat. Fish that are lower on the food chain, or younger, are seen as safer. As the article makes clear, an important first step is to discover the exact nature of the ocean's mercury methylation process. After the process is understood, it may be possible to control it. Until we can reduce the amount of mercury that accumulates in the ocean, it would be advisable to avoid fish that may be high on mercury, wouldn't it?
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The scientists used powerful mathematical algorithms to find the smallest subset of these SNPs that could be used to predict eye colour accurately and found six that predicted blue and brown eye colour with just over 90% accuracy. The team report their work in Current Biology. The accuracy of the test was lower — just over 70% — for eyes of other colours. Most people have brown or blue eyes, with blue the dominant colour for those with roots in Northern Europe but brown predominating among those with ancestors from Southern Europe or from elsewhere in the world. So far, the test has been shown to be accurate only for Dutch people of European ancestry. Further work would be needed before the test could be used in other countries. The best predictive tests to date have only had an accuracy of around 80%, Kayser says. "That's not bad but it is not accurate enough for forensics," he says. The Netherlands Forensic Institute plans to use the new method in forensic case work within a year. Dutch laws allow use of DNA to predict eye colour. But Kayser notes that many countries would have to change their legislation to allow the test to be used in forensic applications. Forensic geneticist Peter de Knijff, of the Netherland's Leiden University Medical Center, says that the results will spur the race to develop more reliable genetic tests for hair and skin colour. "Those three — eye colour, hair colour, skin colour — combined with a rather accurate global test for the inference of the geographical origin of an individual will probably be built into a general package that you could use to get information about an unknown suspect," he says. The method could, in theory, also be used to predict the eye colour of a fetus — fuelling fears about 'designer' babies. "That would have different ethical and legal implications," Kayser stresses. よろしくお願いします＾＾；
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