article · Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
An assessment of dark honey fungus collected across twelve geographically separated sites evaluated the bioconcentration of mercury in mushroom fruiting bodies and underlying soil. Tested soil substrates contained between 20 and 100 nanograms of mercury per gram dry weight, while fungal caps ranged from 20 to 300 nanograms per gram and stipes contained between 20 and 160 nanograms per gram. Across all samples, caps accumulated higher mercury levels than stipes, showing mercury concentrations roughly 1.1 to 1.7 times greater than the stems. Because bioconcentration factors exceeded one for all caps and most stipes, dark honey fungus acts as a moderate accumulator of mercury from surrounding soils. Despite this uptake capacity, total contamination levels remain low enough that regular or occasional consumption of the caps falls comfortably below established dietary safety thresholds and provisionally tolerable weekly intake limits.
Wild edible mushrooms can accumulate hazardous heavy metals from the forest environment into their tissues. Establishing baseline mercury levels and bioconcentration tendencies in wild dark honey fungus provides vital safety data for foragers, consumers, and public health authorities, confirming that eating these wild mushrooms does not pose a mercury toxicity risk under standard dietary habits.
The findings provide baseline safety and contamination data relevant to food safety regulators, commercial wild-mushroom harvesters, and food distributors assessing compliance with heavy-metal limits. As an applied environmental and food safety survey, the analytical evidence is readily available for informing wild-food procurement standards, food quality assurance protocols, and consumer dietary safety guidance without requiring further technological development.
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BACKGROUND: This paper reports data on bioconcentration potential and baseline mercury concentrations of fruiting bodies of dark honey fungus (Armillaria solidipes) Peck and soil substrate layer (0-10 cm) from 12 spatially distant sites across Poland. Mercury content of caps, stipes and soil samples were determined using validated analytical procedure including cold-vapor atomic absorption spectroscopy after thermal decomposition of the sample matrix and further amalgamation and desorption of mercury from gold wool. RESULTS: Mean mercury concentrations ranged from 20 ± 8 to 300 ± 70 ng g(-1) dry weight (dw) in caps, from 20 ± 6 to 160 ± 40 ng g(-1) dw in stipes, and in underlying soil were from 20 ± 2 to 100 ± 130 ng g(-1) dw. The results showed that stipes mercury concentrations were 1.1- to 1.7-fold lower than those of caps. All caps and the majority of stipes were characterized by bioconcentration factor values > 1, indicating that dark honey fungus can be characterized as a moderate mercury accumulator. CONCLUSION: Occasional or relatively frequent eating of meals including caps of dark honey fungus is considered safe in view of the low total mercury content, and the mercury intake rates are below the current reference dose and provisionally tolerable weekly intake limits for this hazardous metal.
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DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.5807
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