Measurements of heavy metals in the moss Orthotrichum lyellii collected using community science in the Duwamish Valley, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
Authors/Creators
- 1. US Forest Service
- 2. University of Washington
- 3. Amanda L Bidwell LLC*
- 4. Street Sounds Ecology*
- 5. Dirt Corps*
- 6. Just Health Action*
- 7. City of Seattle*
- 8. Western Washington University
- 9. Duwamish River Community Coalition*
Description
Heavy metals concentrations often vary at small spatial scales not captured by air monitoring networks, with implications for environmental justice in industrial-adjacent communities. Pollutants measured in moss tissues are commonly used as a screening tool to guide use of more expensive resources, like air monitors. We piloted a community science approach, engaging over 55 people from nine institutions, to map heavy metals using moss in two industrial-adjacent neighborhoods. Local youth led sampling of the moss Orthotrichum lyellii from trees across a 250×250-m sampling grid (n = 79). We compared their data with expert-collected samples (n = 19) using Principal Components Analysis and Procrustes Analysis. We mapped 21 chemical elements measured in moss, focusing on 6 toxic 'priority' metals: arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, and nickel. We compared local data, using t-tests and boxplots, with two 'reference datasets' of O. lyellii collected in Portland, Oregon, and in Seattle City Parks. We also use Principal Components Analysis to describe major gradients in metals in the study area. Our data submission includes two R scripts and four datasets of heavy metals in moss, including the two reference datasets, which will enable replication of our analyses as well as novel analyses.
Notes
We provide 2 main datasets, one used for most statistical analyses ('Unaveraged_data_all_metals_June8.csv") and one used to create maps ("Final_forMAPSV3"). "Unaveraged_data_all_metals_June8.csv" contains raw values of heavy metals measured in all moss samples along with basic information for each sample, including collector (expert vs youth), collection date, lat and long of sampled tree. ""Final_forMAPSV3" was derived from the prior dataset; it includes only youth-collected data and replicate samples were averaged, leaving one value for mapping. We also include two reference datasets we compared values from the main dataset with ("Portland_fulldataset" and "seattleparks").
Note that Mn and Se values are not reliable and are included for informational purposes only. Mn in moss is influenced by canopy leachates and ICP-OES detection limits for Se are high. Units for all elements are mg/kg unless specified otherwise in the metadata. Additionally, a flash thunderstorm occurred before experts collected moss samples on June 13, which we believe led to systematically lower heavy metals values in expert-collected samples (although results, for the most part, were not statistically significantly different from youth-collected samples; See Derrien et al. 2020).
Files
README_Jovan_et_al_Heavymetalsinmoss_DuwamishValley.txt
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Additional details
Related works
- Is cited by
- 10.3390/ijerph17197278 (DOI)
- Is derived from
- 10.5281/zenodo.6085025 (DOI)
- Is source of
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtFC2cB5h2E (URL)
- https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/projects/duwamish-valley-communities-collaborate-urban-air-quality-biomonitoring-projects (URL)