Assimilation of trace elements ingested by the mussel Mytilus edulis: effects of algal food abundance

Pulse-chase feeding and multi-labelled radiotracer techniques were employed to measure the assimilation of six trace elements ( ^110mAg, ²⁴¹Am, ¹⁰⁹Cd, ⁵⁷Co, ⁷⁵Se and ⁶⁵Zn) from ingested diatoms in M. edulis feeding at different rates. Results indicate that both feeding components of the mussel (i.e. gut passage time, digestive partitioning) and metal chemistry (i.e. metal release at lowered pH within the bivalve gut) are responsible for the difference in the assimilation of trace metals at different food quantities observed in mussels. -from Authors