How could mercury kill fish?

Question

How could mercury kill fish, and why? And what are some ways mercury could be in the water, or in the enviroment in general?

Answer 1

The same way it kills us. Heavy metals like mercury, lead and thallium interfere with co-enzymes which are important in our metabolism. There was plenty of mercury in the environment even before our industrial activities like burning coal started pouring it out. Here in NZ, even in pristine parts of the bush, wild pigs contain unhealthy levels of mercury from roots of native plants which they eat. Even in unpolluted sea water there's a little mercury. In places like Minamata, Japan where there's industrial pollution, there's a lot more. When a fish eats another fish, it concentrates the mercury content, so the higher up the food chain, the more mercury it contains. So shark, swordfish and tuna contain a lot, and anchovies and sardines contain much less.

Answer 2

The dose makes the poison. This is a universal truth. Some mercury is flowing through you right now. But too much and it interferes with the body's able to deal with stuff it has to do. Not sure on the biochemistry part but it's like it interferes with the body's ability to move stuff in the blood.

Answer 3

intense stages of mercury can kill fish, yet that isn't any longer the reply your instructor is searching for. The project you're encountering right it truly is better in all likelihood "eutrophication" -- the pollution are foodstuff that regularly are proscribing elements, which include phosphates. the perception right it truly is that the pollution reason an algal bloom. The algae die, and then there's a bacterial bloom. The micro organism use the oxygen.