Overview
Korzeniowska and colleagues used two moss species and European blueberry leaves as bioindicators of heavy metal deposition along an altitude gradient near a ski and tourist resort in southern Poland. They measured cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, lead and zinc by ICP-MS. Despite the title, the blueberry material was leaves, not berries, so the paper contains no food measurements.
Key numbers
- Abstract: zinc at 1,100 m was 53.6 µg/g in Vaccinium myrtillus and cadmium 0.34 µg/g (leaf material, dry weight).
- Table 2 (p. 7) gives mean leaf and moss values by altitude with coefficients of variation; these are biomonitoring data.
Methods (brief)
Unwashed samples, ten per polygon, collected in September 2024, dried at 40 °C, pooled per plot, microwave digested in nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and analyzed by ICP-MS at a commercial laboratory. Detection limits were 0.01 µg/g for cadmium, copper and lead and 0.1 µg/g for chromium, nickel and zinc. Reference material results are not reported.
Evidence Fitness
Out of scope for food evidence: the plant parts are leaves and mosses used to trace atmospheric deposition. It gives no information about metals in blueberry fruit and is not a proxy measurement for blueberry-muffin. Useful only as regional environmental context.