How does matter such as a toxin become more concentrated in an ecosystem?

Describe the mechanisms of bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Explain the process of biomagnification on the viability and diversity of consumers at all tropic levels. Include examples and visuals to support.

Bioaccumalation is the increase in concentration of a pollutant from the environment to the first organism in food chain. Biomagnification is the increase in concentration of a pollutant from one link in a food chain to another. This means lower tropic levels generally have smaller concentrations of contaminants than higher levels. This occurs because of the ecological inefficiency of food webs and persistent, hydrophobic contaminants bioaccumulating in organisms. These two factors mean that each tropic level has a larger concentration of contaminants dissolved in a smaller amount of biomass than the previous level. Each tropic level becomes more contaminated than those below it. For example, DDT in the Lake Ontario food web is biomagnified up the food web, so that top predators like herring gulls have tissue concentrations that are 630 times greater than primary consumers like zoo plankton.

Why should people be concerned about bioaccumulation/ biomagnification?

Bioaccumalation is a concern to the environment because if there are dangerous chemicals that begin to build up in a organism, it can easily effect its way of living and even kill it. Biomagnification is linked to bioaccumalation because when a organism that has digested a dangerous chemical gets eaten by another organism, then that chemical will get into the seconds organisms body and start to damage it and even possibly kill it.

Pesticides and herbicides are used in many agricultural practices. Although this leads to bigger yields (more crop), how will this effect the food chain of the ecosystem? Do you think the use of toxins, such as pesticides or herbicides, is beneficial or harmful to our food production?

It will effect the food chain because the animal that eats the crops will be harmed because the plant is laced with pesticides. The pesticides can then lead to its digestive system and harm that or even possibly kill. If that does not happen it can then hide in the fat tissues of the animal that eats the pesticides. Either way whatever east that animal next will also now have pesticides within its body, and it will continue throughout the food chain. I believe that pesticides are bad because it doesn’t only harm the animals that eat the plants but they also harm us, as humans. When the fruit or vegetables get ‘cleaned of pesticides’ its not always completely clean. Just think all those chemicals are in your body and now think of all the chemicals that are in animals bodies! its crazy and not natural, if they were meant to have chemicals on them they’d grow like that.

What are some other chemicals (include sources) that bioaccumulate? Is there anything that can be done to reduce the effects of these chemicals?

There is a lot of heavy metals that bioaccumulate such as Mercury, copper and cadmium. Cadmium is a very common chemical that is found in tobacco. In order to lessen the effects of this chemicals it would be more than smart to stay away from smoking and to check where your fish comes from and that it is from a cadmium free environment. Also it would be very wise to dispose of your cadmium batteries due to the fact that they could leak and get into anything.
http://w3.marietta.edu/~biol/102/2bioma95.html
HTTP://WWW.drat.CDC.gov/ohs/ohs.asp?id=46&tid=15