Cesium mushroom

L. Racz, A. Bumbalova, M. Harangozo, J. Tolgyessy, O. Tomecek, Determination of cesium and selenium in cultivated mushrooms using radionuclide X-ray fluorescence technique, J. Radioanal. Nucl Chem., 245 (2000), 611-614. 

J. T. van Elteren, U. D. Woroniecka, K. J. Kroon, Accumulation and distribution of selenium and cesium in the cultivated mushroom Agaricus bisporus - a radiotracer-aided study, Chemosphere, 36 (1998), 1787-1798. 

To date, no sign of essentiality for plants, animals, and humans have been reported for cesium neither has any biomagnification by fauna been described, and soil concentrations of cesium are always much higher than that of both plants and animals. Cesium bioconcentration has not been observed in any specialized parts of plants, except for the skin of the hats of certain types of mushrooms, wherein cesium (detected as radiocesium) accumulates to high levels. In this situation it is thought that the cesium is enriched in the color pigments of the hat skin (Kalac, 2001). The potassium content of the mushroom was also found to relate inversely to the cesium content in other words, the higher the potassium content, the lower the cesium content (Marin et al., 1997). 

The contamination of the game is species-dependent (see Table 1-5.1), due mainly to the types of plant eaten by the animals, as different plant species absorb different amounts of radiocesium from the soil (Table 1-5.3). Plant species gro ving vithin the same region also exhibit large variation in cesium uptake and accumulation (Table 1-5.4). Examples of this include mushroom species found in the Bavarian Forest and the Cortinarius species, vhich retain high cesium levels (Haffelder, 1995, Steine et ah, 2002). 

Stijve, X. and M. Poretti 1990. Radio-cesium levels in wild-growing mushiooms from various locations Mushroom the Journal, Summer issue, pp. 5—9. 

Korky J.K., Kowalski L. Radioactive cesium in edible mushrooms. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 37, 568-569 (1989). 

Sugiyama H., Takahashi M.N., Terada H., Kuwahara C., Maeda C., Anzai Y., Kato F. Accumulation and localization of cesium in edible mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus) mycelia. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 56 9641-9646 (2008). 

---