Hello,

BAF can be explained depending on the choice of your element. Suppose if you are considering to compare a non toxic element like Mn to a toxic element like As, in low concentrations, the uptake rate will be varied depending on the plant species and its associated transporter proteins that allows specific metals to pass through. on the other hand, accumulation of metals or metalloids and related toxicity also depends on the selected plant and its own intrinsic tolerance capacity to resist cellular degeneration. So, BAF is not inversely related to exposure concentrations at the beginning. For example, As in water can be accumulated in plant tissues with increasing concentration in water but after a certain growth point, plant will stop taking up As from surrounding media. At this point you need to assess the data stating that whether your plant is capable enough to remove your desired limit of As from the water system by calculating BAF. So percentage removal is an important assessment to justify BAF.

Hope this might be helpful a little bit.

Thanks Arnab majumdar.

Usually a BAF or BCF (bioconcentration factor) is used to compare different plants, mediums, metals in terms of accumulation. It does not relate to the toxicity of the metal. For example, a plant that can accumulate Cd (one of the most toxic metals) will have a high BAF for Cd, but maybe this plant will have a lower BCF for Zn (which is less toxic than Cd). The medium concentration will greatly impact it. For example, plants tend to have a much higher BAF for Cd when soils have 1 mg kg, than when soils have 100 mg kg Cd.

thanks, Vinicius Henrique De Oliveira.

Bioaccumulation of organic chemicals in fish and other organisms that may constitute food chains is a concern because of both possible adverse effects on the organisms themselves and the potential for exposure to predators, including humans, that may consume these organisms. The values of bioaccumulation factors can be vary widely in magnitude among elements, organisms, and environmental conditions which is not always considered. They are often treated as spatially and temporally variable constants. For Interpretation of BAF, A more appropriate approach is to formulate algorithms to express BAF as a function of basic environmental variables.

BAF may be directly proportional to toxicity level if organisms are having same tolerance level.