Singh and Nyau 2020 - Heavy metals in edible wild mushrooms from Zambia

Singh and Nyau measured Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn, Ni, and Co in three edible wild mushroom species from a mining-influenced site in Solwezi District and an agriculture-influenced site in Mpongwe District, Zambia. The paper gives species-by-site mean concentrations on a dry-weight basis. Cadmium in Termitomyces titaniscus and Lactarius titaniscus was well above the source-cited 0.3 mg/kg FAO/WHO benchmark at both sites, while lead values stayed below or near the source-cited 2.0 mg/kg benchmark.

Key numbers

All mushroom concentrations are source-reported mean +/- SD in mg/kg dry weight.

The paper also reports source-cited FAO/WHO comparison values of 73 mg/kg Cu, 0.3 mg/kg Cd, 2.0 mg/kg Pb, 40 mg/kg Zn, 1.5 mg/kg Ni, and 50 mg/kg Co. Soil values across the paired sites spanned Cu 51.00-279.40 mg/kg, Cd 1.00-99.50 mg/kg, Pb 8.00-10.00 mg/kg, Zn 22.80-209.10 mg/kg, Ni 9.00-33.70 mg/kg, and Co 60.00-111.90 mg/kg dry weight.

Methods (brief)

Samples were collected from Solwezi forests in the Copperbelt mining region and from Mpongwe District in the Western Province agricultural region. Mushrooms were cleaned, oven-dried at 105 C overnight, ground, and digested from a 1 g dry sample with HNO3:H2SO4:HClO4 at 5:1:1. Metals were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry on a PerkinElmer AAnalyst 200 using commercial reference standards. The source reports dry-weight concentrations and does not perform arsenic, mercury, or chromium speciation.

Implications

• Certification: Adds dry-weight occurrence values for Cd, Pb, Ni, Co, Cu, and Zn in wild edible mushrooms from Zambia. The Cd results are most relevant for heavy-metal screening because four of six species-site means exceeded the paper’s cited 0.3 mg/kg comparator.
• Courses: Useful case study for mining-region vs agricultural-region mushroom uptake and for why mushroom species identity matters in occurrence screening.
• App: Supports wild-mushrooms and mushrooms with species-specific concentration data rather than a generic mushroom average.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• wild-mushrooms
• mushrooms
• cadmium
• lead
• nickel
• cobalt
• copper
• zinc

Verification notes

• Source reports total elemental concentrations for Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn, Ni, and Co; it does not measure arsenic, mercury, or chromium species.
• products: [] is intentional because the PDF is an occurrence study of freshly collected wild edible mushrooms, not a packaged mushroom product.
• The source cites FAO/WHO comparison values directly; this page records those as source-reported comparators and does not treat them as HMTc standards.

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.