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Copper pollution from medieval mine -potential health threat…

GREEN NEWS. Affected grass Agrostis tenuis on the slopes of the mine. Copper pollution from medieval mine -potential health threat….

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Copper pollution from medieval mine -potential health threat…

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  1. GREEN NEWS Affected grass Agrostis tenuis on the slopes of the mine Copper pollution from medieval mine -potential health threat… ………….Scientists have since found out that some individuals of this species have the capacity to uptake and store quite high concentrations of heavy metals without any severe impairment of growth. Indeed some plants seem to grow better in solutions containing copper than in solutions without copper

  2. Scientists have compared the growth of plants in solutions with and without copper. The index of tolerance is a measure of the root growth of the plants in copper solutions compared to root growth in solutions without copper. The higher the value the more copper tolerant they are. index of tolerance = length of root in metal solution x 100 length of root in control

  3. DATA The next slide shows the variation in average copper tolerance of samples of the grass Agrostis tenuis along a transect through the edge of the copper mine. (Adapted from Macnair 1981) The copper impregnated part of the transect is highlighted in red.

  4. Distance along the transect (m) Prevailing wind

  5. Graphical skills • Ask students to plot the data in the most suitable way

  6. Analysis Ask students to summarise what the data shows.. • In which part of the mine are the adult grass plants most tolerant of copper? • Compare the plants upwind of the mine with the plants downwind. Can you account for this? • Compare the growth of plants from seed with adult plants from the mine area. Is a seed population uniform? Which seedlings would survive? Why? • The seed population downwind is more tolerant of copper than the seed population on the mine. Why do you think this is? • In the non mine area adults are less tolerant than a random sample of seed. What does this tell you?

  7. Summary from the scientific paper Genetic variation in average copper tolerance of samples of the grass Agrostis tenuis along a transect through the edge of a copper mine. The copper impregnated part of the transect is highlighted. Note that although the average copper tolerance is higher in the copper rich area, it is also high in the grasses immediately downwind due to gene flow from the copper area. The white and blue bars represent individuals grown from seed and individuals taken as adults from the site. Adults are more tolerant in the mine area than if they had grown from a random sample of seeds; this indicates there is selection against non tolerant genotypes arising from gene flow. In the non mine area, copper tolerance is selected against; adults are less tolerant than if they had grown from a random sample of seed. (From Macnair 1981)

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