Total mercury in Yellow Knights (Tricholoma equestre) mushrooms and beneath soils

Mercury has been determined in caps, stipes and whole fruiting bodies of Yellow Knights mushrooms and the beneath top layer of soils from ten geographically distant locations in Poland. The Yellow Knights can be considered as an effective accumulator of total Hg. The mean values of bioconcentration factor (BCF) of Hg in caps of Yellow Knights for nine of the locations ranged from 22 ± 9 to 75 ± 13 (total range 9.0-90) and for stipes from 13 ± 7 to 52 ± 9 (total 4.4-93). The top layer (0-10 cm) of soils in these nine sites contained Hg with mean (±SD) concentration ranging from 0.019 ± 0.003 to 0.046 ± 0.007 ng/g dry weight. Mercury was less accumulated (BCF 4.9 ± 2.7 for a whole fruiting bodies) by Yellow Knights that emerged at the most contaminated site, where soil contained 0.059 ± 0.028 ng Hg/g dw. The potential of Yellow Knights communities to bioconcentrate Hg (determined as BCF) in fruiting bodies varied between the localities more than tenfold and decreased highly with increase of Hg content of the top soil.