Unprecedentedly High Dust Ingestion Estimates for the General Population in a Mining District of DR Congo.

The mining of metals in low income countries is often associated with high exposure to dust that contributes to metal exposure. Here, dust ingestion estimates were made from fecal excretion of inert tracers with corrections for dietary contribution. The study took place in the cobalt mining area of Lubumbashi (DR Congo) and involved 120 nonoccupationally exposed participants in the dry season, with 51 of these being repeated in the rainy season.

Phosphorus resource partitioning shapes phosphorus acquisition and plant species abundance in grasslands.

Species diversity is commonly hypothesized to result from trade-offs for different limiting resources, providing separate niches for coexisting species. As soil nutrients occur in multiple chemical forms, plant differences in acquisition of the same element derived from different compounds may represent unique niche dimensions. Because plant productivity of ecosystems is often limited by phosphorus, and because plants have evolved diverse adaptations to acquire soil phosphorus, a promising yet untested hypothesis is phosphorus resource partitioning.