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Laboratory Estimation of Net Trophic Transfer Efficiencies of PCB Congeners to Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush from Its Prey
Published on: August 29, 2014
PCDD/F and PCB levels in different tissues from dugongs (Dugong dugon) inhabiting the Queensland coastline
S Vijayasarathy1, L Weijs2, S Grant1
1Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, Queensland 4102, Australia.
Abstract:
Previous studies on PCDD/Fs and PCBs in dugong (Dugong dugon) blubber reported unexpectedly elevated TEQ levels. This study analysed archived blubber, muscle, liver and faeces obtained from dugongs from two areas along the Queensland coast. All samples showed detectable levels of PCDDs and PCBs, while PCDFs were consistently near or below LOQ. PCDD levels in dugongs contributed to a large proportion (<95%) of sum TEQ levels in all tissues (blubber: 6.7-38 pg g-1 lw, muscle: 5.7-96 pg g-1 lw, liver: 3.3-42 pg g-1 lw, faeces: 203 pg g-1 lw). Liver/blubber tissue ratios show that PCDDs are preferentially accumulated in the liver with higher degree of chlorination. The same trend was not so obvious with PCBs, which occasionally showed higher hepatic sequestration of lower chlorinated PCBs such as PCBs 28 and 77. PCDD congeners were dominated by OCDD which is similar to the profiles from the dugongs' food source, namely sediment and seagrass.
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