Researchers have highlighted the role of certain shoreline spiders, particularly long-jawed spiders, in moving mercury contamination from aquatic regions to terrestrial ecosystems. Mercury, which largely comes from industrial pollution, can enter water systems and be converted into a toxic form, met
hylmercury. This methylmercury then travels up the aquatic food chain and is consumed by spiders, which are, in turn, eaten by land animals.
Sitting calmly in their webs, many spiders patiently await for prey to come to them. Arachnids along lakes and rivers eat aquatic insects, such as dragonflies. When these insects live in mercury-contaminated waterways, they can pass the metal along to the spiders that feed on them. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’have demonstrated how some shoreline spiders can move mercury contamination from riverbeds up the food chain to land animals.
Scientists increasingly recognize spiders living on lakeshores and riverbanks as a potential link between contamination in waterways and animals that mostly live on land, such as birds, bats, and amphibians, which eat the insects. So, Sarah Janssen and colleagues wanted to assess if shoreline spiders’ tissues contain mercury from nearby riverbeds and establish how these animals could connect mercury pollution in water and land animals.
Based on the data, the scientists say that long-jawed spiders could indicate how mercury pollution moves from aquatic environments to terrestrial wildlife. The implication of these findings is that spiders living next to the water provide clues to the sources of mercury contamination in the environment, informing management decisions and providing a new tool for monitoring of remediation activities, explain the researchers.
Reference: “Mercury Isotope Values in Shoreline Spiders Reveal the Transfer of Aquatic Mercury Sources to Terrestrial Food Webs” by Sarah E. Janssen, Christopher J. Kotalik, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Gale B. Beaubien, Joel C. Hoffman, Greg Peterson, Marc A. Mills and David M. Walters, 13 September 2023,
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