Arsenic content of small mammals indigenous to old orchard soils

Abstract

Small mammals such as mice and voles which inhabit the immediate surface of old orchard soils typically consume plant parts, insects, organic debris and necessarily adhering soil particles containing accumulated arsenic residues. In an earlier study it was shown that lead accumulated to concentrations up to 400 ppm dry weight in bone of pine voles inhabiting such orchard soils. High concentrations of lead were also found in liver and kidney of these mammals (ELFVING et al. 1978). Individual tissue samples were too small to permit analysis of arsenic. In the work reported, small mammals were trapped in a number of orchards in New York which had received multiple applications of inorganic arsenic compounds annually for many years. The entire body burden of arsenic was then determined in the animals.