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Why are appex predators affected the most by pollutants and toxins in their environment?
What does this mean to you?

Here in California, mercury oozes into the streams because the entire state was once a cinnabar mine. Once the mercury is in the streams, it is consumed by small insects and then it is converted to highly toxic methyl mercury via their gastric juices. Now then, birds eat the insects and the methyl mercury is transformed into hydrocyanic methyl mercury due to their pancreas. Next, a small rodent, or feline, eats the bird. The hydrocyanic methyl mercury is converted within the intestines to cytochrome P450 cesium 137 hydrocyanic methyl mercury. At the very top of the food chain sits the mighty California electric S-35 limpet, the greatest and most dangerous apex predator of all time. They eat small cats & birds and therefore consume all the nasty toxins. It is very bad for their tummy! BLEACK. In conclusion, the mighty California electric S-35 limpet should stick to eating insects, or go vegan.

What does that mean for us? This was a question my Biology teacher asked. He gave us a "hint". You are what you eat. Please help me.

Apex predators are at the top of the food chain. Pollutants and toxins get concentrated in these apex predators.

Overly simple example (and quite possibly not realistic….):

shrimp eat plankton (5000 a day)
fish eat shrimp (20 a day)
seals eat fish (10 a day)
polar bears eat seals (2 a day)

A polar bear therefor eats the equivalent of 2×10x20×5000=2.000.000 plankton a day.

Now, if the plankton absorbs a little bit of pollution, the polar bear will eat 2 million times that amount of pollution.

Considering WE are apex predators, the same happens to us…… pollutants and toxins get concentrated in us.

PLZ HELP ME!!!! i need the help..i have looked everywhere and cannot find out how they filter the water…

Surprised no one answered. One reason is the high level of biological activity, which consumes organic pollutants and inorganic fertilizing compounds. When it dies, the pants and bacteria that consumed these pollutants settles to the bottom and gets buried in place, rather than migrating downstream, effectively removing the nutrients and pollutants from the system.

Furthermore, because wetlands are low flow zones, solids settle out and become buried, removing a large proproportion of any contaminants that migrate as or with solids.

I need to know for my science project!

Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic. It has harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infastructure. Acid rain is mostly caused by human emissions of sulfur and nitrogen compounds which react in the atmosphere to produce acids

Acid rain" is a popular term referring to the deposition of wet (rain, snow, sleet, fog and cloudwater, dew) and dry (acidifying particles and gases) acidic components. A more accurate term is “acid deposition”. Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acidic, and those with a pH greater than 7 are basic. “Clean” or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of about 5.2, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid (pH 5.6 in distilled water), but unpolluted rain also contains other chemicals.[1]

H2O (l) + CO2 (g) → H2CO3 (aq)
Carbonic acid then can ionize in water forming low concentrations of hydronium ions:

2H2O (l) + H2CO3 (aq) CO32- (aq) + 2H3O+(aq)
The extra acidity in rain comes from the reaction of primary air pollutants, primarily sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, with water in the air to form strong acids (like sulfuric and nitric acid). The main sources of these pollutants are industrial power-generating plants and vehicles.

A coal one :] im doing it for science homework, and i dont understand anything i search on the internet.

They emit CO2 and some CO along with other things. These are considered greenhouse gases. But depending on the other things mixed in with the fossil fuels it is not uncommon for considerable amounts of sulfates (especially in the case of coal which you specified), nitrates, phosphates, to be released into the atmosphere. These compounds can be very detrimental to the ecosystem because when they come into contact with water vapor, which is plentiful in our atmosphere, they form acidic solutions. Sulfate forms Sulfuric acid ( a stong 2-stage acid), Nitrate forms Nitric acid ( a strong monoprotic acid), and phosphate forms Phosphoric acid ( a weak polyprotic acid.) These acids can then fall to earth in the form of acid rain, which can be very taxing on the environment. The greenhouse gases and acid radicals are just 2 groups of pollutants and there are several more, but these seem to be the most controversy stirring of coal power plants.

Anyone know any of those gases or pollutants that harm human health and/or the environment? I’m looking for some that are directly related to waste, so like landfills, gases produced by burning waste and dumping waste in water. Anything helps.

Landfills are usually called Model Landfills and that will help you search.
It depends on the class of landfill.
A Class I is the most hazardous (other than weapons and nuclear waste. ) Where human trash and garbage are dumped is a class I. Think of all the things that you have put in a trashcan, or seen in a trashcan, or know goes into trash….Yucky. Now, rain on that, freeze it, heat it, thaw it.You have leachete. Liner and drains are built into every class 1 LF to keep leachete from hitting ground or water supplies.
A Class 4 is the least hazardous. It is usually untreated wood and old concrete. There is a small amount of chemicals, but class 4’s are usually lined w/ 2′ of clay materials.
There is everything in-between.

The gas that is formed on landfills is called methane. Waste Management has converted many of their sites to energy production. Methane is even converted to liquid for fuel in the heavy equipment that is part of the Landfill, Sanitary Landfill, Solid Waste Authorities etc.

How were these levels determined? Who sets these levels?

I can’t find any websites that talk about this :/ sooo please if you just give me a website thats really all I need.

Seach for "National Ambient Air Quality Standards" (NAAQS)
SO2: 0.14 ppm averaged over 24 hr period
NO2: 0.053 ppm averaged over 1 year period
CO: 35 ppm averaged over 1 hr period
O3: 0.075 ppm averaged over 8 hr period
PM2.5: 35 microgram/m^3 averaged over 24 hr period
(PM2.5 means Particulate Mater of 2.5 micrometer or less in size.)

please help! i have to write an essay on this.

The top of the food chain usually consumes a lot of pollutants from having eaten so many "contaminated" samples. It’s like being continuously exposed to something that is ok in small amounts.

In particular into a local stream and what effects would the pollutants have on the fish? I’ve done the other parts to the question and found about the other industries but this one has me stumped any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
In North America I would say that any water used in the processing or cleaning of any food plant needs to be treated through a lagoon or community sewage process they cannot just use the water and release it directly into a water source.Possible pollutants would be warm water fish like cold water to survive cold water has a higher oxygen content,unused and used food debris from processing,chemical additives for colouring and flavouring and preservatives,cleaning agents,lubricating and oils from the maintenance of equipment.

♣what solutions are there to putting CO 2 gases in the air and other pollutants♣

Mans contribution to atmospheric Co2 is very minimal and not reversible. when I was a little kid in grade school (back before Independence) they taught we were just coming out of an ice age, and the glacial melt caused the Great Lakes… then in high-school (shortly before electricity) they taught that very same thing… now Voila… we have… 50 years later an all new and improved reason for the warming… (groan) Global warming IS happening, a given, but not for the reasons our leftist liberal science sources, politicians and socialist press are reporting. The majority of scientific studies are now discounting Carbon Dioxide emitted by motor vehicles (burning of fossil fuels for our basic energy requirements) as the cause. Geological history indicates natural solar cycles are the culprit, something politicians have no power over so they tend to ignore. The real short-term danger is in fact a buildup of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, but not the buildup of Carbon Dioxide. The real culprit is Methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas, being released into the atmosphere by the (natural) decay of Methane Hydrate occurring (naturally) frozen on the ocean floors, due to the gradual (natural) warming of ocean water by (natural) solar cycles, another item our politicians have no control over and the liberal media will never mention. Follow the money trail… They promote revenue and power by promoting fear. "We just have to do SOMETHING…You know"? So they continue to promote cars as the culprit, people and cars… which do we get rid of first?, (sound like something from the Pol Pot generation?)
There is a natural cyclic Co2 increase due to solar cycles, plus the natural atmospheric Co2 exchange due to photosynthesis (natural plant biology). Man’s contribution to the (new) atmospheric Co2 increase has been estimated at less than 10%. If you do the math, a world wide reduction of fossil fuel use of 10 % would do absolutely nothing to ward off the natural warming cycle, and plunge the world economy in to absolute chaos, causing mass starvation and civil unrest. Who wants to be the first to push THAT button??? The liberals just want an excuse to raise taxes and legislate more control over peoples lives.