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Published on: August 3, 2016
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in three bathyal chondrichthyes from the North-Western Mediterranean Sea
Guia Consales1, Massimiliano Bottaro2, Cecilia Mancusi3
1Department of Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment, University of Siena, Via Mattioli 4, Siena 53100, Italy; Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Genoa Marine Centre, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italian National Institute for Marine Biology, Ecology and Biotechnology, Villa del Principe, Piazza del Principe 4, 16126 Genoa, Italy.
Abstract:
The deep-sea can act as a sink for legacy contaminants such as organochlorines (OCs), causing damages in its inhabitants for their persistence and their prolonged effects in the organisms. HCB, DDT and its isomers, and 28 PCBs congeners were detected in muscle and embryonic tissues of three deep-sea chondrichthyes Chimaera monstrosa (n = 16), Dalatias licha (n = 12) and Etmopterus spinax (n = 51) sampled in Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Sea (Mediterranean Sea). Contaminant distribution in E. spinax and C. monstrosa was PCBs > DDTs ≫ HCB while in D. licha was DDTs > PCBs ≫ HCB. Statistically significant differences were highlighted in OC levels among the species, but no such differences were found among sexes. Ratios between DDT isomers highlighted an historical input of the pesticide in the environment. For the first time was also demonstrated maternal transfer in deep water chondrichthyes, specifically in E. spinax where was highlighted that transfer of contaminants increases with increasing compound's Log Kow.
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