Health Risk Assessment of the Trace and Macro Elements

Dear Colleagues,

Several trace and macro elements are required to keep organisms alive. However, these can also represent a risk when their concentrations are higher than the levels needed to perform physiological functions. Furthermore, among species, the elements and doses that are essential for living can vary. These facts raise a number of questions: How does the concentration of different chemical elements vary spatially and temporally in the same species? How much of certain elements can a species tolerate? What damage or physiological responses does a species express from a lack or excess of a chemical element? How does an element biomagnify depending on the trophic chain that inhabits a site? Can we identify which elements are essential in some species but not in others? In addition, growing industrial activity needs high metal usage, which has resulted in significant mining around the world in recent years. As a result, the quantities of heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and others in environmental contexts are rapidly growing. The majority of heavy metals accumulate in numerous aquatic pray species, causing death in other aquatic animals, as well as in humans.

This subject also includes study on heavy metal toxicity in environmental species, as well as human investigations. This Topic aims to provide an instrument for the discussion of recent advances in the identification of the factors that influence the accumulation of trace and macro elements among different species. Studies devoted to spatial and temporal analysis of trace and macro elements in marine and terrestrial environments are welcome.

Dr. Lía Celina Méndez-Rodríguez
Dr. Mahesh Rachamalla
Topic Editors