Study of the microbial component in the mercury cycle in polar area

Mercury is a global pollutant, which causes public health problems. It is emitted by both natural and anthropogenic sources. In polar areas, a particular chemistry leads to an oxidation of elemental mercury of the atmosphere in divalent mercury that is deposited onto snow. This PhD propose to study the microbiological component in the mercury cycle in polar area, in order to understand if micro organisms have a role to play in the entry of mercury in the ecosystems. For this work some different kind of samples were studied: bacteria and yeast isolated from polar snow, sampling of plankton from arctic, and sampling of microbial mats from arctic and Antarctic.The results obtained indicate that the different types of micro organisms were able to react with mercury. This kind of research between chemistry and biology was one of the first one in this laboratory and the results obtained give interesting perspectives for understanding of the mercury cycle in polar area.