Bioaccumulation
The gradual buildup of heavy metals, toxins, or chemicals over time in a living organism.
What is bioaccumulation?
Humans primarily consume biomagnified toxins by eating this type of food.
What is seafood?
The process of toxins or heavy metals becoming more concentrated as you move up the food chain.
What is biomagnification?
What DDT is used as.
What is a pesticide?
The way in which DDT affected bald eagles.
What is eggshell thinning?
The type of tissue where pesticides such as DDT accumulate.
What is fat/lipids?
The group of living things is DDT found in.
What is EVERY living thing?
The group most affected by biomagnification.
What are apex predators?
The year DDT was banned.
What is 1972?
The way in which orcas are affected by DDT.
What is fertility?
The full form of the acronym POPs.
What are persistent organic pollutants?
Substances that can increase cancer risk are known as these.
What are carcinogens?
Biomagnification is most evident in these ecosystems.
What are marine ecosystems?
The pronunciation of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
What is dy-klor-oh-dy-fen-uhl-try-klor-oh-eth-ayn?
When orcas go through periods of starvation, they burn through this tissue, which releases the trapped toxins into their bodies.
What is blubber?
A heavy metal that can be transformed into methylmercury by bacteria, which then bioaccumulates.
What is mercury?
The system that is affected in people with exposure to excessive amounts of biomagnified heavy metals.
What is the nervous system?
The element symbols that spell the word “lipids.”
What is lithium, phosphorus, iodine, darmstadtium?
The specific type of toxin that DDT is.
What is a neurotoxin?
The percent of DDT a mother orca passes down as she feeds her babies.
What is 70 percent?
The process in which pollutants such as DDT and microplastics are carried on moving air masses and travel great distances.
What is long range atmospheric transport?
DDT mimics hormones and disrupts this system.
What is the endocrine system?
The book that was said to have sparked the modern environmental movement, and the impact was a factor of DDT getting banned.
What is Silent Spring?
Where DDT targets in the body.
What are voltage gated sodium channels?
The mineral that, when DDT causes not to be properly absorbed, makes the eggshells of predatory birds too thin.
What is calcium?