Research Article Effect of Mining Activities in Biotic Communities of Villa de la Paz, San Luis Potosi, Mexico Guillermo Espinosa-Reyes, 1 Donaji J. González-Mille, 1 César A. Ilizaliturri-Hernández, 1 Jesús Mejía-Saavedra, 1 V. Gabriela Cilia-López, 1 Rogelio Costilla-Salazar, 2 and Fernando Díaz-Barriga 1 1 CIACYT-Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Aut´ onoma de San Luis Potos´ ı, Avenida Sierra Leona No. 550, Lomas 2da Secci´ on, 78210 M´ exico, SLP, Mexico 2 Life Sciences Division, Universidad de Guanajuato, Campus Irapuato-Salamanca, Carretera Salamanca-Valle de Santiago Km. 3.5 + 1.8, Palo Blanco, 36885 Salamanca, GTO, Mexico Correspondence should be addressed to Donaji J. Gonz´ alez-Mille; donaji.gonzalez@uaslp.mx Received 20 October 2013; Revised 12 December 2013; Accepted 16 December 2013; Published 30 January 2014 Academic Editor: Fernando Barbosa Jr. Copyright © 2014 Guillermo Espinosa-Reyes et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Mining is one of the most important industrial activities worldwide. During its diferent stages numerous impacts are generated to the environment. he activities in the region have generated a great amount of mining residues, which have caused severe pollution and health efects in both human population and biotic components. he aim of this paper was to assess the impact of mining activities on biotic communities within the district of Villa de la Paz. he results showed that the concentrations of As and Pb in soil were higher than the national regulations for urban or agricultural areas. he bioavailability of these metals was certiied by the presence of them in the roots of species of plants and in kidneys and livers of wild rodents. In regard to the community analysis, the sites that were located close to the mining district of Villa de la Paz registered a lower biological diversity, in both plants and wild rodents, aside from showing a change in the species composition of plant communities. he results of this study are evidence of the impact of mining on biotic communities, and the need to take into account the wildlife in the assessment of contaminated sites. 1. Introduction Mining is one of the most important industrial activities worldwide. It is estimated that there are at least 10,000 mining industries and more than 20,000 mining sites, mineral pro- cessing plants, and smelting [1]. Nevertheless, it is considered to be a productive activity with a high environmental impact because in its diferent stages (exploration, extraction, and processing) it generates numerous adverse efects, as well as a great amount of residues, which could cause water, soil, and sediment pollution [2, 3]. he generation of residues (tailing dams, deposits, and slag) is one of the most notorious environmental impacts in the mining activity, for they are considered to be the source of heavy metals such as cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), and metalloids such as arsenic (As) [4]. his pollution source represents in a major or minor way a risk, for both human population (health) and for biota (ecological) living in the study site [5, 6]. Mining brings as a consequence diverse types of impact that could afect the composition and structure of the biotic communities (richness, abundance, diversity, dominance, trophic relationships, etc.); among the most evident impacts we can ind (1) elimination of vegetation, which alters the availability of food and shelter for wild animals and (2) the toxic efects in the health of organisms derived from the presence of heavy metals [7–10]. In Mexico around 5,036,836,611.54 tons per year of metals such as silver (Ag), gold (Au), Cu, Cd, lead, and Zn Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 165046, 13 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/165046