As far as I know, plants in general (excluding seaweed) are super low in iodine. Anyone know the answer to this?
In: Biology
Herbivores have to eat a lot of plant material to get enough of other nutrients and energy. Iodine naturally accumulates along with the rest.
Herbivores generally eat a *ton* and have a digestive system that gets everything it can out of it.
Plants in general are not super low in Iodine (at least not compared to how nutrient dense they are). Grains and roots are very low in iodine. The stuff humans eat. And even then severe iodine deficiency is normally a result of farming in iodine poor soils.
Overall it depends on how much iodine is in the soil, where alpine regions and river valleys tend to have less iodine. Alpine regions due to the way topsoil accumulates and the lack of trees as an iodine binder, and river valleys due to the leeching effect of water.*
Otherwise iodine tends to accumulate in the topsoil, from marine aerosols and volcanic ashfalls etc. There it’s absorbed mainly by trees and concentrated in leaves and bark (the favored food of animals like deer) and eventually in the humus (dark organic soil).
Some animals are more sensitive to low iodine than others, and the levels of iodine in the topsoil has been shown to be an important factor for how well for example various species of mountain goats are able to live in different regions.
*As a result the alpine regions were notorious for Goiter. Switzerland, the Italian alps and the Po valley. Although the Po valley was mainly due to the inhabitants diet getting poorer as industrialism and international trade meant that food was grown to be sold rather than supply the local region and the local farmers couldn’t afford food they had previously grown.
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