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Abstract
Relations between the geochemical nature of soils and their parent materials and the occurrence of nutritional deciencies and excesses in grazing livestock have been documented since the 1960s and earlier, with notable work in
Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, USA and the Soviet Union. Studies at Imperial College London,
into the development of regional geochemical mapping techniques as a means of delineating nutritional problems
commenced in the 1960s and have continued to the present. Research has mainly focussed on deciencies of Cu, Co and
Se in cattle and sheep, and the role of Mo and S in the soil/plant system in both clinical and sub-clinical hypocuprosis in
cattle. Exposure to heavy metals, in particular Pb, Zn, Cd and the metalloid As have also received attention in areas
contaminated by past mining and smelting activities. Soil and plant factors inuencing the dietary supply of both essential
trace elements and toxic metals have been studied, including their speciation and bioavailability. Soil ingestion has been
recognised as an important exposure pathway of heavy metal contamination to grazing cattle, and as an antagonist of Cu
supply and a source of dietary Co in sheep. Relations between soil geochemistry and the mineral status of wildlife species,
in particular impala and black rhinoceros, have been established in Kenya and recent work, presented elsewhere in this
Symposium, has concerned the supply of nutrients to the Roosevelt sable in Kenya. The compilation of regional and
national multi-purpose geochemical atlases, based on the systematic sampling of soils or stream sediments, is now
recognised as a priority in many countries of the developed and developing world. This paper explores the opportunities
for future research into the application of geochemical maps for the optimisation of land use, ecient livestock production, and improving conservation of wildlife. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Mills (1979) reviewed the nature, pathological
response, metabolic defects, aetiology and detection of
trace element deciency and excess in animals. He
emphasized the complexity of soilplantanimal relations with respect to trace element supply and noted
that the application of geochemical approaches to the
initial recognition of areas associated with a high risk
of anomalies in trace element supply to animals had
considerable potential value. Such an approach had
initially been proposed by Webb (1964), whose concept
of multi-purpose geochemical mapping was to instigate
wide-ranging studies in future years.
0883-2927/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0883-2927(02)00079-3
1018
rocks, soils and plants; (ii) spacial information on element distribution in the form of geochemical maps and
atlases; (iii) the development of analytical techniques,
particularly for the characterisation of chemical and
mineral forms of elements in soils and (iv) arising from
the above, the provision of geochemical data required to
understand the processes leading to the solubility, bioavailability, and pathways of nutritionally essential trace
elements and potentially toxic metals in the rocksoil
plantanimal system. Such information continues to be of
value in understanding the sources and supply/exposure of
elements to both domestic livestock and wildlife species.
In recent years, data handling, interpretation and
application has been assisted by the development of
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and by the
development of risk assessment strategies used as tools
for the prediction of element deciencies and excesses
leading to animal ill-health.
2. Agricultural livestock
Research in the 1960s and earlier into applications of
geochemistry to agriculture was mainly undertaken in
Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland,
USA and the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s
much emphasis was placed on the nutritional needs of
domestic livestock. In developed countries, intensive
farming methods aimed to realize the genetic potential
of dierent breeds of cattle and sheep for meat, dairy
and wool production.
Within this period, geochemical maps, based on a
systematic sampling and analysis of stream sediments
and soils, were used to delineate areas of potential
nutrient deciency and metal excess. Their main application was to indicate areas or regions within which
more detailed study of soil and pasture herbage could
then be concentrated. For example, early studies in
Counties Whicklow and Carlow, Eire, indicated a
correlation between the Co content of stream sediments
and the occurrence and severity of pine in sheep and
cattle on soils derived from granite (Webb, 1964). Geochemical maps showed similar low Co patterns ( <10
mg/g) on granites in SW England on which pine had
been recognized since the 1930s (Patterson, 1938), while
moderately low patterns (1015 mg/g) on the Culm
Measures in Devon and on Triassic drift in Denbighshire were related to soil and pasture of low Co content
on which unthriftiness and pine were found in sheep
(Thornton and Webb, 1970).
One of the best examples of the application of geochemistry to agriculture is shown by the combined geochemical
map for Mo and Cu in England and Wales (Fig. 1) (Webb
et al., 1978) which highlights the considerable extent of high
Mo and low Cu land which is thought to exceed 4105 ha.
The main patterns of elevated Mo concentrations are
1019
Fig. 1. Combined element map for empirical Molybdenum (red), increasing colour contribution with increasing element concentration
and percentile Copper (blue), increasing colour contribution with decreasing element concentration.
1020
Fig. 2.
as much as 50%, and that as little as 2% ingestion signicantly reduced Cu use. The mechanism for this was
not immediately clear and it was not known whether the
soil particles occluded Cu in the diet, whether they supplied Mo, or whether the eect was due to some as yet
unknown process (Suttle et al., 1975).
In some simple laboratory experiments, soil was shaken with rumen liquor in a test tube. The large amounts
of Fe coming into solution from this soil gave a valuable
clue. This work was repeated on a larger scale using
articial rumen systems at the Moredon Institute. The
Fe released from soil is a powerful Cu antagonist, and it
1021
1022
Fig. 3.
1023
Table 1
Mean contribution of soil to total daily intake of As and Cu in 11 herds of cattle in Cornwall, England
Farm type
(based on soil As)
2050 mg kg1 As
n=3
55140 mg kg1 As
n=3
160259 mg kg1 As
n=5
Mean % soil
ingested
As
Cu
As
Cu
As
Cu
1.4
24
26
140
67
10
1.4
85
93
21
175
76
10
1.1
202
199
52
190
58
16
1024
4. The future
Thornton (1993) referred to the fact that geochemical
maps and atlases continue to cover greater areas and
would provide an exciting opportunity to study the global
signicance of many of the problems previously studied
on a local or regional scale. The group of European
Geological Surveys (FOREGS, 1996) has made considerable progress in bringing together existing geochemical survey information Europe-wide and plans
have been drawn up for further sampling strategies to
complete the European picture. On a global scale, an
updated proposal for a geochemical reference network
has been published, with the prime aim of providing a
framework of systematic baseline data to facilitate the
preparation of a World Geochemical Atlas. Both the
European mapping programme and the worldwide
initiative would have obvious applications to agriculture, including animal health and production (Darnley et al., 1995).
There is also obvious potential on a regional and
national scale for the consolidation and interpretation
1025
1026
Table 2
Tropical countries in which Cu deciency in grazing cattle and
sheep is a serious problem
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Colombia
Costa Rice
Cuba
Dominican Rep.
Ecuador
El Salvador
Ethiopia
Guatemala
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
India
Indonesia
Kenya
Saudi Arabia
Malaysia
Malawi
Mexico
Panama
Peru
Philippines
Senegal
South Africa
Sudan
Surinam
Swaziland
Tanzania
Trinidad
Uruguay
Venezuela
Zaire
Zimbabwe
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