Biological Magnification of Soil Pollutants

The mad rat races among the nations for development have jeopardized the human beings. The increasing population of the world is the major cause of anxiety for scientists as it leads to force human beings to change the natural environment, which is responsible for various types of pollution. These toxic pollutants are incorporated in the environment through soil, air, and water and in turn administered to the organisms at different trophic levels through food chains. Biomagnification is a condition where the chemical concentration of a compound in an organism exceeds the concentration of its food when the organism’s diet is the major way of exposure for that compound. The toxic chemicals are exposed at different trophic levels and in turn are magnified through food chains and food webs. Soil is the most active site where the presence of various xenobiotics, chemicals pesticides, and heavy metals alters the natural soil environment as these chemicals are indispensable part of agriculture accounting for the main components of fertilizers. At successive trophic levels, these components are incorporated through producers to consumers and in turn amplified. Thus, soil pollutants play a pivotal role in biological magnification as they are the main source of contaminated products which are amplified in nature to affect adversely human beings. According to modern research, it has been concluded that human activities are mainly responsible for the majority of different types of soil pollutants. In this chapter, we will try to summarize the main sources of soil pollutants and their role in biological magnification along with their adverse role at different trophic levels.