Friday, January 28, 2022

The unfair 'double whammy' of minority ethnic children in care

Children in care who come from an ethnic minority background can experience a 'double whammy' of disadvantage when it comes to youth justice involvement, says new research from Lancaster University.

Inequalities in the youth justice system regarding ethnic minority children and children in care, including foster care, children's homes or kinship care, have intensified with minoritised children in care likely to bear the brunt, particularly those who identify as Black.

This, says the research, results in the 'institutionalised criminalisation' of ethnic minority children in care who must contend with both the stigma of their ethnicity and of being care-experienced.

Formally launched today in the Prison Service Journal, the article 'Out of Place': The Criminalisation of Black and Minority Ethnic Looked After Children in England and Wales, highlights a disproportionate representation of Black and minority ethnic children who have been through the care system.

The Economic and Social Research Council-funded research analysed official datasets from the Office for National Statistics, Department for Education, Youth Justice Board, Home Office and Ministry of Justice and included 27 in-depth interviews with youth justice and children's services experts.

The research, by Dr. Katie Hunter, of Lancaster University Law School, aimed to close conspicuous gaps in the knowledge base by providing the first analysis combining ethnicity, care experience and youth justice involvement.

The research finds minority ethnic children are disproportionately likely to come into contact with the youth justice system through stop and search, with Black individuals nine times more likely to be stopped and searched than white individuals.

Ethnic minority children are also increasingly over-represented in arrest figures. For example, Black children (aged 10 to 17) comprise roughly 4.4 percent of the general population, yet accounted for 15.7 percent of arrests in 2018/19 (an increase of 7.6 percent since 2008/2009).Experts interviewed overwhelmingly felt policing of Black children and communities was excessive and driven by highly problematic, racialised assumptions about the types of individuals who engaged in criminal behaviour.

Research suggests minoritised individuals, particularly those who identify as Black, were likely to receive harsher sentences than white individuals although more research is needed to determine the precise nature of court interactions.

The official data demonstrated that Black children are more likely to be punished, and to be punished more severely at all stages of the youth justice process.

Interviewees said ethnic minority children, particularly those who are Black, must contend with racialised assumptions penetrating all aspects of the system. The research finds the disproportionality is driven by two key processes, placement instability and criminalisation in care settings.

Placement stability is exacerbated for ethnic minority children in care for whom there is a shortage of placements with ethnic minority foster carers.

This means they tend to be housed in residential placements, where they are more likely to receive a formal youth justice sanction than in other placement types.

Interviewees were concerned that children's homes had a 'last resort' status among local authorities, with one former magistrate describing them as a 'dumping ground'.

The lack of provision in inner city areas, which, typically, have larger ethnic minority populations, more heavily impacts upon ethnic minority children in care since they tend to be placed further from home than their white counterparts.

Two interviewees described how Black children could 'stick out like a sore thumb' when housed in largely white, working class areas, in which their ethnicity and care status intersect to produce the 'double whammy' outlined above.

There is evidence to suggest that children in care are subjected to increased scrutiny and surveillance, which can result in their criminalisation.

Interviewees gave numerous examples of carers, particularly staff in private children's homes, calling the police for behaviour that would not usually result in youth justice intervention.

One interviewee felt calling the police to help manage behaviour was damaging because it put children on the 'police radar' which was a 'slippery slope' to formal youth justice sanctions, leading to labelling and stigmatisation, resulting in further criminalisation.

Many interviewees also felt that looked after children were disadvantaged in the youth justice system because they were not perceived as having 'supportive' backgrounds.

Several interviewees were adamant that a lack of advocacy could result in looked after children receiving harsher sanctions, in particular custodial sentences.

They believed that professionals perceived the lives of such children as 'chaotic' and so attempt to mediate that by imposing structure.

Added Dr. Hunter: "Significant issues must be addressed to reduce the overrepresentation of ethnic minority looked after children in the youth justice system and the juvenile secure estate. Both groups of children are subjected to increased scrutiny and surveillance, ultimately amounting to institutionalised criminalisation."Ethnic minorities experience persisting inequality in treatment for mental health problems

Provided by Lancaster University

Wider-reaching solutions urgently needed to reach realistic 'net zero', warn researchers

by University of Leicester

There should be greater investment in using a wider group of experts to make decisions about how the landscape is managed if the UK is to reach climate targets such as net zero, a new report warns.

Tackling the climate emergency should involve those knowledgeable in the arts, business owners, farmers, landowners, developers and investors, the study says.

The interdisciplinary team of UK researchers have highlighted 'multiple contradictions' in the pathways to net zero climate targets and called for wider-reaching solutions to create a more sustainable future.

The Landscape Decisions Programme, led by the University of Leicester, has published a new research report with input from environmental scientists, ecosystem modellers, human geographers, humanities scholars, and other experts from Leicester, Reading, Exeter, Bangor, Leeds, Nottingham, Wales Trinity Saint David, and Robert Gordon universities, plus expertise from Rothamsted Research and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

The UKRI-funded report stresses the potential negative impact of existing pathways to net zero climate targets, which include losses in the benefits of biodiversity, human wellbeing and cultural knowledge of the landscape.

The UK government has previously set a net zero target of 2050, through a proposed reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and better management of so-called 'carbon sinks' such as peatlands and forests, and with new carbon capture technologies.

Recommendations made by the interdisciplinary group include a greater focus on locally-devolved decisions in land-use solutions, as a one-size-fits all approach to net zero landscape management could be damaging in certain environments.

As well as studying the physical impact of landscape decisions, these should be taken within the full context of the social consequences of these changes; for example, in the case of sudden large-scale changes to farming.

The group do, however, recognise that "swift action is essential, otherwise we head deeper towards an inability to reach net zero carbon targets, contribute to biodiversity collapse and, promote societal disengagement with landscapes".

Dr. Beth Cole is Senior Research Fellow for the Landscape Decisions Programme, based at the University of Leicester, and lead author for the report. She said:

"To reach the net zero goals we need to make some challenging decisions about the way we use, manage, and interact with landscapes in the UK. These landscape decisions are dependent upon many factors including the environmental characteristics, and the geographic location of the land, but in this report, we also consider the wider social framing of these decisions and call for inclusive, place-specific net zero practices within landscapes that support both biodiversity and people.

"Collaborating across disciplines this group of researchers together make a team that is greater than the sum of its parts and who have broken down some of the silos this urgent issue is normally approached from."

Dr. Katharine Earnshaw, a co-author based in the University of Exeter's Department of Classics and Ancient History, said:

"We have an urgent need to think about the culture of change—not just what could be possible on paper. This means a better consideration of the whole picture: social and ethical ideas—the habits of thinking—alongside empirical evidence, taking account of past, present and future.

"This novel report demonstrates the genuine benefits of working across different subjects and with communities and businesses so that we do not reproduce the inequalities that have led us to this crisis."

Co-author and natural scientist Professor Simon Willcock, of Rothamsted Research and Bangor University, added:

"Obviously, there is an urgent need to move towards net zero landscape decisions to limit the impacts of climate change. However, landscape changes impact a great variety of things—from the carbon and water cycles to biodiversity and local peoples.

"Only by making interdisciplinary decisions that take these many things into account can we move towards achieving sustainability more broadly—benefiting people and nature. Our report highlights this and provides key recommendations as to how net-zero can be achieved more inclusively."

Professor Heiko Balzter is a Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Leicester and Director of the Centre for Landscape and Climate Research, and is Chair of the Programme Coordination Team for the UKRI Landscape Decisions Programme. He added:

"Our landscapes in the UK are about to change faster than they have done in a long time. These changes are driven by the urgent need to prevent catastrophic climate change by achieving net zero emissions no later than 2050, reversing the loss of many endangered animal and plant species, as well as improving food security and livelihoods of our farmers. This report highlights some key recommendations for decision-makers on ethical consideration, participatory approaches and the trade-offs and synergies between different goals and interventions."Prioritising protection for threatened carbon-storing landscapes

More information: Landscape Decisions to Meet Net Zero Carbon: Pathways that consider ethics, socio-ecological diversity, and landscape functions, landscapedecisions.org. DOI: 10.25392/leicester.data.19011629

Provided by University of Leicester

New species of 'incredibly rare' insect discovered

by Anglia Ruskin University

New species of 'incredibly rare' insect discovered

The newly discovered leafhopper Phlogis kibalensis. Credit: Please credit Dr Alvin Helden, Anglia Ruskin University

A British scientist has discovered a new species that belongs to a group of insects so rare that its closest relative was last seen in 1969.

Dr. Alvin Helden of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) found the new species of leafhopper, which he has named Phlogis kibalensis, during field work with students in the rainforest of the Kibale National Park in western Uganda, and the discovery has been announced in the journal Zootaxa.

The new species, which has a distinctive metallic sheen, pitted body, and, in common with most leafhoppers, uniquely-shaped male reproductive organs—in this case partially leaf-shaped—belongs to a group, or genus, called Phlogis.

Prior to this new discovery, the last recorded sighting of a leafhopper from this rare genus was in Central African Republic in 1969.

Leafhoppers are closely related to cicadas but are much smaller, with the male of the newly discovered Phlogis kibalensis species just 6.5mm long. Leafhoppers feed mainly on plant sap, sucked directly from the phloem, and are preyed on by invertebrates, including spiders, beetles, and parasitic wasps, as well as birds.

Dr. Helden, a member of the Applied Ecology Research Group at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: "To find this new species is a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, particularly as it's closest relative was last found in a different country over 50 years ago. I knew it was something very special as soon as I spotted it.

New species of 'incredibly rare' insect discovered — Dr Alvin Helden carrying out field work in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Credit:

"Leafhoppers of this genus, and the wider tribe, are very unusual in appearance, and are rarely found. In fact, they are so incredibly rare that their biology remains almost completely unknown, and we know almost nothing about Phlogis kibalensis, the new species I found, including what plants it feeds on or its role in the local ecosystem.

"There is so much still to find out, not just about this species but so many others, including the many species that are still waiting to be discovered. It is incredibly sad to think that some species will become extinct before we are even aware of their existence.

"There are some wonderful places, like the Kibale National Park in Uganda, where wildlife will survive, but outside national parks and reserves, the amount of rainforest that has been cleared in the tropics is devastating. Rare species could be living anywhere, but deforestation means it is inevitable that we will be losing species before we have discovered them."

Dr. Helden has been leading student field trips to the Kibale National Park, close to Uganda's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, since 2015. As part of the work, he has been documenting the insects found within the park, and has produced picture guides to Kibale's butterflies, hawkmoths, and tortoise beetles.

Dr. Helden added: "I've been photographing insects in Kibale National Park over many years, and we have now started collating these into photographic field guides as we wanted to give something back to people of Uganda, who have been so hospitable to Anglia Ruskin University during our field trips."DR Congo park fetes birth of endangered gorilla species

More information: A new species of the unusual leafhopper genus Phlogis Linnavuori (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Signoretiinae) from Uganda, Zootaxa (2022).

Journal information: Zootaxa

Provided by Anglia Ruskin University

Look who's talking now: The fishes

by Pat Leonard, Cornell University

There's a whole lot of talking going on beneath the waves. A new Cornell study finds that fish are far more likely to communicate with sound than generally thought—and some fish have been doing this for at least 155 million years.

"We've known for a long time that some fish make sounds," said lead author Aaron Rice, a researcher at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "But fish sounds were always perceived as rare oddities. We wanted to know if these were one-offs or if there was a broader pattern for acoustic communication in fishes."

Rice is first author of "Evolutionary Patterns in Sound Production Across Fishes," published Jan. 20 in the journal Ichthyology and Herpetology.

The authors looked at a branch of fishes called ray-finned fishes. These are vertebrates (having a backbone) comprising 99% of the world's known species of fishes. They found 175 families that contain two-thirds of fish species that do—or are likely to—communicate with sound. By examining the fish family tree, study authors found that sound was so important, it evolved at least 33 separate times over millions of years.

"Thanks to decades of basic research on the evolutionary relationships of fishes, we can now explore many questions about how different functions and behaviors evolved in the approximately 35,000 known species of fishes," said co-author William E. Bemis '76, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "We're getting away from a strictly human-centric way of thinking. What we learn could give us some insight on the drivers of sound communication and how it continues to evolve."

The scientists used three sources of information: Existing recordings and scientific papers describing fish sounds; the known anatomy of a fish—whether they have the right tools for making sounds, such as certain bones, an air bladder and sound-specific muscles; and references in 19th century literature before underwater microphones were invented.

"Sound communication is often overlooked within fishes, yet they make up more than half of all living vertebrate species," said Andrew Bass, co-lead author and the Horace White Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences. "They've probably been overlooked because fishes are not easily heard or seen, and the science of underwater acoustic communication has primarily focused on whales and dolphins. But fishes have voices, too."

What are the fish talking about? Pretty much the same things we all talk about—sex and food. Rice says the fish are either trying to attract a mate, defend a food source or territory, or let others know where they are. Even some of the common names for fish are based on the sounds they make, such as grunts, croakers, hog fish, squeaking catfish and trumpeters.

Rice intends to keep tracking the discovery of sound in fish species and add them to his growing database—a project he began 20 years ago with study co-authors Ingrid Kaatz and Philip Lobel, a professor of biology at Boston University. Their collaboration has continued and expanded since Rice came to Cornell.

"This introduces sound communication to so many more groups than we ever thought," Rice said. "Fish do everything. They breathe air, they fly, they eat anything and everything—at this point, nothing would surprise me about fishes and the sounds that they can make."

Other co-authors are Stacy Farina of Howard University and Andrea Makowski.Venom has contributed to the species diversity of insects and fishes, new study reveals

More information: Aaron N. Rice et al, Evolutionary Patterns in Sound Production across Fishes, Ichthyology & Herpetology (2022). DOI: 10.1643/i2020172

Provided by Cornell University

Coral skeleton formation rate determines resilience to acidifying oceans

by Sarah Perdue, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A new University of Wisconsin-Madison study has implications for predicting coral reef survival and developing mitigation strategies against having their bony skeletons weakened by ocean acidification.

Though coral reefs make up less than one percent of the ocean floor, these ecosystems are among the most biodiverse on the planet—with over a million species estimated to be associated with reefs.

The coral species that make up these reefs are known to be differently sensitive or resilient to ocean acidification—the result of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. But scientists are not sure why.

In the study, researchers show that the crystallization rate of coral skeletons differs across species and is correlated with their resilience to acidification.

"Many agencies keep putting out reports in which they say, 'Yes, coral reefs are threatened,' with no idea what to do," says Pupa Gilbert, a physics professor at UW–Madison and senior author of the study that was published Jan. 17 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. "Finding solutions that are science-based is a priority, and having a quantitative idea of exactly what's happening with climate change to coral reefs and skeletons is really important."

Reef-forming corals are marine animals that produce a hard skeleton made up of the mostly insoluble crystalline material aragonite. Aragonite forms when precursors made up of a more soluble form, amorphous calcium carbonate, are deposited onto the growing skeleton and then crystallize.

The team studied three genera of coral and took an in-depth look at the components of their growing skeletons. They used a technique that Gilbert pioneered called PEEM spectromicroscopy, which detects the different forms of calcium carbonate with the greatest sensitivity to date.

When they used these spectromicroscopy images to compare the thickness of amorphous precursors to the crystalline form, they found that Acropora, which is more sensitive to acidification, had a much thicker band of amorphous calcium carbonate than Stylophora, which is less sensitive.

A third genus of unknown sensitivity, Turbinaria, had an even thinner amorphous precursor layer than Stylophora, suggesting it should be the most resilient of the three to ocean acidification.

The thicker the band of uncrystallized minerals, the slower the crystallization process.

"If the surface of the coral skeleton, where all this amorphous calcium carbonate is being deposited by the living animal, crystallizes quickly, then that particular species is resilient to ocean acidification; if it crystallizes slowly, then it's vulnerable," Gilbert says. "For once, it's a really simple mechanism."

The mechanism may have worked out to be simple, but the data analysis required to process and interpret the PEEM images is anything but. Each pixel of imaging data acquired has a calcium spectrum that needs to be analyzed, which results in millions of data points. Processing the data includes many decision-making points, plus massive computing power.

The team has tried to automate the analysis or use machine-learning techniques, but those methods have not worked out. Instead, Gilbert has found that humans making decisions are the best data processors.

Gilbert did not want to base conclusions off the decision-making of just one or two people. So she hired a group of UW–Madison undergraduates, most of whom came from the Mercile J. Lee Scholars Program, which works to attract and retain talented students from underrepresented groups. This team provided a large and diverse group of decision makers.

Dubbed the Cnidarians—from the phylum to which corals, anemones and jellyfish belong—this group of students became integral members of the team. They met several times a week via Zoom, when Gilbert would assign multiple students the same dataset to process in parallel and discuss at their next meeting.

"If multiple people come up with precisely the same solution even though they make different decisions, that means our analysis is robust and reliable," Gilbert says. "The Cnidarians' contributions were so useful that 13 of them are co-authors on this study."A better understanding of coral skeleton growth suggests ways to restore reefs

More information: Connor A. Schmidt et al, Faster Crystallization during Coral Skeleton Formation Correlates with Resilience to Ocean Acidification, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2022). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c11434

Journal information: Journal of the American Chemical Society

Provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison

Extremely harsh volcanic lake shows how life might have existed on Mars

by Frontiers

A few specialist microbes survive conditions analogous to those of Mars' early history, reports a new publication in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science—and this may be thanks to a broad range of adaptations. The hydrothermal crater lake of the Poás volcano in Costa Rica is one of the most hostile habitats on the planet.

The water is ultra-acidic, full of toxic metals and the temperatures range from comfortable to boiling. In addition, recurrent 'phreatic eruptions' cause sudden explosions of steam, ash and rock. Despite such deadly eruptions, hydrothermal environments may be where the earliest forms of life began on Earth—and potentially also on Mars, if there ever was life.

Beyond discovering how life can survive these harsh conditions, studying these microbes provides clues about if and how life might have existed on Mars. "One of our key findings is that, within this extreme volcanic lake, we detected only a few types of microorganisms, yet a potential multitude of ways for them to survive," says first author Justin Wang, a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder, in the United States. "We believe they do this by surviving on the fringes of the lake when eruptions are occurring. This is when having a relatively wide array of genes would be useful."

This current interdisciplinary collaboration follows up on prior work from 2013. At that time, the researchers found that there was just one microbial species coming from the Acidiphilium genus in the Poás volcanic lake. Unsurprisingly, this type of bacteria is commonly found in acid mine drainages and hydrothermal systems, and they are known to have multiple genes adapted to diverse surroundings.

In the following years, there was a series of eruptions and the team returned in 2017 to see whether there had been changes in the microbial diversity, as well as to study the organisms' biochemical processes more comprehensively. This latest work shows that there was a bit more biodiversity, but still a dominance of the Acidiphilium bacteria.

Through DNA sequencing of the organisms in the lake samples, the team confirmed that the bacteria had a wide variety of biochemical capabilities to potentially help them tolerate extreme and dynamic conditions. These included pathways to create energy using sulfur, iron, arsenic, carbon fixation (like plants), both simple and complex sugars and bioplastic granules (which microorganisms can create and use as energy and carbon reserves during stress or starvation) Extremely harsh volcanic lake shows how life might have existed on Mars

The crater and its extremely harsh lake, Laguna Caliente, dominated by a single genus of extremophile Acidiphilium b

"We expected a lot of the genes that we found, but we didn't expect this many given the lake's low biodiversity," says Wang. "This was quite a surprise, but it is absolutely elegant. It makes sense that this is how life would adapt to living in an active volcanic crater lake."

Despite the oftentimes lethal surroundings, hydrothermal systems provide most of the key ingredients for the evolution of life, including heat, water and energy. This is why leading theories for both Earth and Mars focus on these locations. So far, previous efforts in search of life on Mars have focused on streambeds or river deltas, but the authors suggest that more attention should be given to the sites of past hot springs (which were present on Mars for billions of years).

"Our research provides a framework for how 'Earth life' could have existed in hydrothermal environments on Mars," explains Wang. "But whether life ever existed on Mars and whether or not it resembles the microorganisms we have here is still a big question. We hope that our research steers the conversation to prioritize searching for signs of life in these environments, for example there are some good targets on the crater rim of Jezero Crater, which is where the Perseverance rover is right now."Microbes living in a toxic volcanic lake could hold clues to life on Mars

More information: Microbial Survival in an Extreme Martian Analog Ecosystem: Poás Volcano, Costa Rica, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fspas.2022.817900 , www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … pas.2022.817900/full

Provided by Frontiers

A link between early maturation and better aerobic performance identified in juvenile salmon

by University of Helsinki

A study conducted at the University of Helsinki indicates that early sexual maturation and high aerobic performance in salmon have a genetic link that is already evident in juvenile salmon.

Salmon are born in rivers, migrate to the sea to reach maturity and return to spawn in their native river. While the salmon that reach their maturity at an early age return from the sea after a single year, the individuals that are slower to develop can spend two years or an even longer time at sea.

Genomic regions have been identified in the salmon genome that heavily regulate the number of years spent at sea. Under the direction of Academy of Finland Research Fellow Tutku Aykanat, researchers from the University of Helsinki bred a large number of young salmon that differed on the basis of two such regions.

The researchers measured the basal metabolism and aerobic performance of the juvenile salmon before the onset of their maturation process. Carriers of gene variants associated with early sexual maturation were found to have better aerobic performance than those whose variants were associated with the late onset of sexual maturity. Aerobic performance denotes the metabolic capacity to produce energy through aerobic cellular respiration, for example, in muscles.

"Greater aerobic performance can promote early maturation, since growth, food supply and reproduction require energy produced through aerobic metabolism," says Postdoctoral Researcher Jenni Prokkola from the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki.

The genetic coupling of age-at-maturity and performance did not depend on the amount of food available to the salmon, which indicates that the finding could be generalisable to both wild salmon populations and fish farming conditions.

"Salmon that have spent several years at sea and mature at a later date are considerably larger and produce a larger number of offspring when they return to spawn compared to salmon that spawn after only one year at sea. Now, it would be important to determine whether these salmon are more susceptible to global warming due to their poorer aerobic performance. Higher water temperatures increase the energy needs of fish, but the limitations of aerobic performance make adaptation to high temperatures challenging. Aerobic performance can become an increasingly important factor for salmon in warming habitats," Prokkola says.

Investigating the genetic and physiological factors that affect age at sexual maturity is important for understanding changes taking place in salmon populations.

The research was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.Farmed fish breeding with wild fish is changing the life cycle of wild fish

More information: Jenni M. Prokkola et al, Genetic coupling of life-history and aerobic performance in Atlantic salmon, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.2500

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Provided by University of Helsinki

Peruvian gold rush turns pristine rainforests into heavily polluted mercury sinks

by Duke University

If you had to guess which part of the world has the highest levels of atmospheric mercury pollution, you probably wouldn't pick a patch of pristine Amazonian rainforest. Yet, that's exactly where they are.

In a new study appearing Jan. 26 in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of researchers show that illegal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon is causing exceptionally high levels of atmospheric mercury pollution in the nearby Los Amigos Biological Station.

One stand of old-growth pristine forest was found to harbor the highest levels of mercury ever recorded, rivaling industrial areas where mercury is mined. Birds from this area have up to twelve times more mercury in their systems than birds from less polluted areas.

The impact and spread of mercury pollution have primarily been studied in aquatic systems. In this study, a team of researchers led by Jacqueline Gerson, who completed this research as part of her Ph.D. at Duke, and Emily Bernhardt, professor of Biology, provide the first measurements of terrestrial deposits of atmospheric methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury.

Illegal miners separate gold particles from river sediments using mercury, which binds to gold, forming pellets large enough to be caught in a sieve. Atmospheric mercury is released when these pellets are burned in open fire ovens. The high temperature separates the gold, which melts, from the mercury, which goes up in smoke. This mercury smoke ends up being washed into the soil by rainfall, deposited onto the surface of leaves, or absorbed directly into the leaves' tissues.

To measure this mercury, Gerson and her team collected samples of air, leaf litter, soil and green leaves from the top of trees, which were obtained with the help of a huge slingshot. They focused their collection on four types of environments: forested and deforested, near mining activity or far from mining activity. Two of the forested areas near mining activity are patches with small, scraggly trees, and the third is Los Amigos Biological Station, a pristine old-growth forest that has never been touched.

Deforested areas, that would have received mercury solely through rainfall, had low levels of mercury regardless of their distance to the mining activity. Forested areas, which accumulate mercury both on their leaves and into their leaves, weren't all the same. The four areas with scraggly trees, two near mining activity and two further away, had levels of mercury in keeping with world-wide averages.

"We found that mature Amazonian forests near gold mining are capturing huge volumes of atmospheric mercury, more than any other ecosystem previously studied in the entire world," said Gerson, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

For all forested areas, Gerson and her team measured a parameter called leaf area index, which represents how dense the canopy is.

They found that mercury levels were directly related to leaf area index: the denser the canopy, the more mercury it holds. The canopy acts like a catch-all for the gases and particulates originating from the nearby burning of gold-mercury pellets.

To estimate how much of the mercury caught in the forest canopy was making its way through the food web, the team measured the mercury accumulated in feathers of three songbird species, in reserve stations near and far from mining activity.

Birds from Los Amigos had on average three times, and up to 12 times more mercury in their feathers than those from a more remote biological station. Such high concentrations of mercury could provoke a decline of up to 30% in these birds' reproductive success.

"These forests are doing an enormous service by capturing a huge fraction of this mercury and preventing it from getting to the global atmospheric pool," Bernhardt said. "It makes it even more important that they not be burned or deforested, because that would release all that mercury back to the atmosphere."

Small-scale artisanal gold mining is an important livelihood for local communities. Akin to the American gold-rush that ravaged California in the 1850s, it is driven by economic necessity, and disproportionally impacts indigenous communities.

"This is not something new or exclusive to this area," Bernhardt said. "A very similar thing, with very similar methods, has already been done throughout many of the wealthy countries of the world where gold was available. The demand is just pushing mining further into new areas."

"There's a reason why people are mining," Gerson said. "It's an important livelihood, so the goal is not to get rid of mining completely, nor is it for people like us coming in from the United States to be the ones imposing solutions or determining what should happen."

"The goal is to highlight that the issues are far vaster than water pollution, and that we need to work with local communities to come up with ways for miners to have a sustainable livelihood and protect indigenous communities from being poisoned through air and water," Gerson said.

Mine ponds amplify mercury risks in Peru's Amazon

More information: Amazon Forests Capture High Levels of Atmospheric Mercury Pollution From Artisanal Gold Mining, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-27997-3

Journal information: Nature Communications

Provided by Duke University

Peruvian gold rush turns pristine rainforests into heavily polluted mercury sinks

Scientists record the highest levels of atmospheric mercury pollution in the world in a pristine patch of the Peruvian Amazon

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

Mercury Smoke in the Amazon — IMAGE: ARTISINAL GOLD MINERS IN THE PERUVIAN AMAZON USE OPEN PIT FIRES TO EXTRACT GOLD, SENDING METHYLMERCURY INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. NEW DATA SHOWS HOW THAT MERCURY IS ABSORBED BY NEARBY ECOSYSTEMS. view more
CREDIT: MELISSA MARCHESE

DURHAM, N.C. – If you had to guess which part of the world has the highest levels of atmospheric mercury pollution, you probably wouldn’t pick a patch of pristine Amazonian rainforest. Yet, that’s exactly where they are.

Deforested areas, that would have received mercury solely through rainfall, had low levels of mercury regardless of their distance to the mining activity. Forested areas, which accumulate mercury both on their leaves and into their leaves, weren’t all the same. The four areas with scraggly trees, two near mining activity and two further away, had levels of mercury in keeping with world-wide averages.

“We found that mature Amazonian forests near gold mining are capturing huge volumes of atmospheric mercury, more than any other ecosystem previously studied in the entire world,” said Gerson, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

For all forested areas, Gerson and her team measured a parameter called leaf area index, which represents how dense the canopy is.

“These forests are doing an enormous service by capturing a huge fraction of this mercury and preventing it from getting to the global atmospheric pool,” Bernhardt said. “It makes it even more important that they not be burned or deforested, because that would release all that mercury back to the atmosphere.”

“This is not something new or exclusive to this area,” Bernhardt said. “A very similar thing, with very similar methods, has already been done throughout many of the wealthy countries of the world where gold was available. The demand is just pushing mining further into new areas.”

“There's a reason why people are mining,” Gerson said. “It's an important livelihood, so the goal is not to get rid of mining completely, nor is it for people like us coming in from the United States to be the ones imposing solutions or determining what should happen.”

“The goal is to highlight that the issues are far vaster than water pollution, and that we need to work with local communities to come up with ways for miners to have a sustainable livelihood and protect indigenous communities from being poisoned through air and water,” Gerson said.

Funding was provided to Jaqueline Gerson by Duke Global Health Institute Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Duke Global Health Institute Doctoral Scholar Program, Duke University Bass Connections, Duke University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Tinker Research Travel Grant Award, Duke University Center for International and Global Studies Research and Training Grant, Duke University Dissertation Research International Travel Award, Geological Society of America Grants in Aid of Research, Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Funding was provided to Emily Bernhardt by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund Grant and the National Science Foundation, through the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

CITATION: “Amazon Forests Capture High Levels of Atmospheric Mercury Pollution From Artisanal Gold Mining,” Jacqueline R Gerson, Natalie Szponar, Angelica Almeyda Zambrano, Bridget Bergquist, Eben Broadbent, Charles T Driscoll, Gideon Erkenswick, David C Evers, Luis E Fernandez, Heileen Hsu-Kim, Giancarlo Inga, Kelsey N Lansdale, Melissa J Marchese, Ari Martinez, Caroline Moore, William K Pan, Raúl Pérez Purizaca, Victor Sánchez, Miles Silman, Emily A Ury, Claudia Vega, Mrinalini Watsa, Emily S Bernhardt. Nature Communications, Jan. 28, 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-27997-3

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-27997-3

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Amazon Forests Capture High Levels of Atmospheric Mercury Pollution From Artisanal Gold Mining

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Jan-2022

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