IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v10y2019i1d10.1038_s41467-019-13221-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rice life cycle-based global mercury biotransport and human methylmercury exposure

Author

Listed:
  • Maodian Liu

    (Peking University
    Yale University)

  • Qianru Zhang

    (Peking University)

  • Menghan Cheng

    (Peking University)

  • Yipeng He

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Long Chen

    (East China Normal University)

  • Haoran Zhang

    (Peking University
    Yale University)

  • Hanlin Cao

    (Peking University)

  • Huizhong Shen

    (Georgia Institute of Technology)

  • Wei Zhang

    (Renmin University of China)

  • Shu Tao

    (Peking University)

  • Xuejun Wang

    (Peking University)

Abstract

Protecting the environment and enhancing food security are among the world’s greatest challenges. Fish consumption is widely considered to be the single significant dietary source of methylmercury. Nevertheless, by synthesizing data from the past six decades and using a variety of models, we find that rice could be a significant global dietary source of human methylmercury exposure, especially in South and Southeast Asia. In 2013, globalization caused 9.9% of human methylmercury exposure via the international rice trade and significantly aggravated rice-derived exposure in Africa (62%), Central Asia (98%) and Europe (42%). In 2016, 180 metric tons of mercury were generated in rice plants, 14-fold greater than that exported from oceans via global fisheries. We suggest that future research should consider both the joint ingestion of rice with fish and the food trade in methylmercury exposure assessments, and anthropogenic biovectors such as crops should be considered in the global mercury cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Maodian Liu & Qianru Zhang & Menghan Cheng & Yipeng He & Long Chen & Haoran Zhang & Hanlin Cao & Huizhong Shen & Wei Zhang & Shu Tao & Xuejun Wang, 2019. "Rice life cycle-based global mercury biotransport and human methylmercury exposure," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-13221-2
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13221-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13221-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-019-13221-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark R. Rosenzweig & Rafael J. Santos Villagran, 2020. "Is Fish Brain Food or Brain Poison? Sea Surface Temperature, Methyl-mercury and Child Cognitive Development," NBER Working Papers 26957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-13221-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.