Brzezicha-Cirocka et al. 2016 - Cadmium and silver in wild edible mushrooms from eastern Poland

Brzezicha-Cirocka et al. measured bio-elements and toxic elements in seven edible wild mushroom species collected from two eastern Polish regions with different environmental settings. Cadmium was detected in all specimens, with low median values below 1.0 mg/kg dry biomass for several species but elevated values in some Boletus, Leccinum, and Xerocomus rows. The most important occurrence signal is Leccinum versipelle from the Tarnobrzeska Plain, where whole fruiting bodies had median Cd of 9.8 mg/kg dry biomass and a reported range up to 57 mg/kg dry biomass.

Key numbers

All concentration values below are reported by the source as mg/kg dry biomass in Table 2. The structured evidence rows convert these values to ug/kg dry weight using 1 mg/kg = 1000 ug/kg.

Cadmium in whole fruiting bodies:

Cadmium in caps and stipes from Tarnobrzeska Plain:

Silver was reported for the Morag whole-fruiting-body rows where data were available: Cantharellus cibarius mean 0.53 mg/kg dry biomass, median 0.55, range 0.17-0.82; Lycoperdon perlatum mean 2.0, median 2.0, range 1.1-3.9; Boletus edulis mean 1.1, median 0.85, range 0.16-3.1; Leccinum aurantiacum mean 0.63, median 0.39, range 0.18-3.3. Several Tarnobrzeska Plain species rows report silver as “WD” without data.

The paper compares mushroom Cd values with European maximum levels for fresh edible mushrooms. It states that the EU limit for Cd is 0.2 mg/kg fresh product for three cultivated species and 1.0 mg/kg fresh product for other mushrooms. Assuming 90 percent moisture, the authors express these as 2.0 mg/kg dry biomass for cultivated species and 10 mg/kg dry biomass for other mushrooms; only Leccinum versipelle from the Tarnobrzeska Plain had median Cd near the 10 mg/kg dry-biomass comparator.

Methods (brief)

The authors collected fruiting bodies of Boletus edulis, Cantharellus cibarius, Leccinum aurantiacum, Leccinum versipelle, Lycoperdon perlatum, Suillus luteus, and Xerocomus subtomentosus from Morag and the Tarnobrzeska Plain. Samples were cleaned, dried at 65 C to constant mass, ground, and digested by microwave-assisted decomposition with concentrated nitric acid in pressurized PTFE vessels. Final determination used flame atomic absorption spectroscopy with deuterium background correction. Analytical control used procedural blanks and certified reference materials including fish flour, lyophilized muscle tissue, and sea lettuce.

Implications

Certification: This is direct occurrence evidence for wild mushroom Cd on a dry-biomass basis. The species and part split matters: a generic wild-mushroom pool would hide the high Cd medians in Leccinum versipelle and Xerocomus subtomentosus. Any standards work should keep species, geography, and dry/fresh basis explicit.

Courses: The paper is a clear example of why mushroom heavy-metal risk is species-specific and why dry-biomass reporting can look high relative to fresh-weight regulatory limits unless moisture conversion is stated.

App: The source supports the existing wild-mushroom Cd concern, especially for Boletus, Leccinum, and Xerocomus species, but it should not be applied to cultivated button mushrooms without a separate cultivated-mushroom source pool.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• wild-mushrooms
• mushrooms
• wild-mushrooms
• cadmium
• silver

Verification notes

The DOI, title, author list, journal, year, and open-access license were taken from the PDF first page and license statement. The PDF SHA-256 at ingest was 3cd39bcddd9479c5c348c7e630068352a9e36803461a57ba4dc53616544539ad. Table 2 is the source of all transcribed Cd and Ag values. The source reports total Cd and total Ag by AAS; it does not report arsenic, mercury, lead, or chromium, and it does not speciate cadmium or silver. The paper contains a typo in the table species row as “Lecinum versipelle”; the source title, abstract, and surrounding text identify the species as Leccinum versipelle.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.