Assessment of Mercury in Selected Game Fish Food Webs in the Texas Coastal Zone

Summary

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) will expand knowledge of methylmercury movement through aquatic food webs in Lavaca Bay, San Antonio Bay, and Nueces Bay to improve management of this pollutant in the Texas coastal zone. The Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) Water Quality Priority Issue Team’s Mercury Workgroup is addressing the issue of mercury in water, sediment, and fish tissues of the Gulf of Mexico. There is little available data to trace mercury from the environment and through the food web to humans. A GOMA-funded project is currently reviewing literature sources to build food webs for selected commercial and recreational fish species that are consumed by humans and have been reported to contain elevated concentrations of mercury. This project will complement the GOMA project by providing much needed information on mercury concentrations in the tissues of shrimps, crabs, worms, and other components of the food webs of red drum, black drum and spotted seatrout.