Methods and Feasibility of Using Aluminum-26 as a Biological Tracer in low pH Waters

Abstract

The fate of aluminum accumulated by fish can be studied using 26Al as a tracer, but the present cost of 26Al will keep experiments to a small scale and replication to a minimum. The methods developed for liquid scintillation counting of 26Al uptake will be most useful with exposures to low Al concentrations, where changes in Al concentration cannot be measured using other methods. Preliminary results showed that the gills and whole bodies of redbelly dace (Chrosomus eos Cope) accumulated more Al, when exposed to 480 μg∙L−1 Al at pH 5.1, than dace exposed to 200 μg∙L−1 Al at the same pH.