Mercury is known to biomagnify in food chains, in the same manner as DDT. Based on your knowledge of biomagnification of DDT, which organism would you expect to contain the most mercury in a contaminated lake?
aquatic insects fish-eating birds small fish large fish algae and plants
In a contaminated lake, the organism you would expect to contain the most mercury due to biomagnification is fish-eating birds.
Biomagnification refers to the process where the concentration of a substance, such as mercury or DDT, increases at each trophic level in a food chain. In this case, mercury would accumulate in small fish, which are then eaten by larger fish. Finally, fish-eating birds, being at the top of the food chain, would have the highest concentration of mercury due to their consumption of multiple large fish over time.
So, the correct answer is fish-eating birds.