Bioaccumulation Factors for PCBs Revisited

Abstract

Bioaccumulation factors (BAFs) for individual polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners in Barents Sea and White Sea marine calanoid copepods were 1-3 orders of magnitude higher than BAFs in the same species in Canadian and Alaskan Arctic Ocean areas, and in freshwater plankton (Lake Ontario) reported from the mid-to early 1980s. The present study reviews variability in PCB BAFs from the North American Great Lakes and the Arctic Ocean, and discusses possible explanations for the large variation among different studies. BAFs are higher in recent arctic marine and Great Lakes studies than previously reported, and they are at least 10 times higher than those predicted from the octanol-water partition coefficient (K OW ). If the recent high BAFs are realistic, it means that earlier reported BAFs are too low. This is likely due to earlier erroneously high quantification of water PCB concentrations, and it implies that bioaccumulation in zooplankton is more efficient than previously assumed. Evidence is presented supporting that also trophic transfer and biomagnification of PCBs in zooplankton leads to BAFs well above those predicted by simple equilibrium partitioning. Overall, miss-measurement of water PCB concentrations and biomagnification contribute significantly to variability in BAFs for PCBs within and among studies. This large variability of BAFs for PCBs in zooplankton illustrated in the present study is of importance for future assessments of potential new bioaccumulative chemicals that rely on measured BAFs, such as the European Union Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals program (REACH).

Influence of season, location, and feeding strategy on bioaccumulation of halogenated organic contaminants in Arctic marine zooplankton

“…Chem. 30,2011relationship line between log BAF and log K OW [7,9,25,27,44]. May had higher BAFs than both July and October, which is in agreement with Hargrave et al [9].…”

“…Hargrave et al [9] and Fisk et al [7] reported similar or higher water HOC concentrations, respectively, in Barrow Strait and North Water Polynya compared with the present study. However, water concentration comparisons should be done cautiously because of differences in sampling gear, filtrated water amounts, and sampling methods that can have an effect on the measured concentrations [27].…”

“…However, whether the relationship between log bioconcentration factor (or BAF) and log K OW is linear [12,22], or curvilinear [7,25], and whether the relationship is indeed 1:1, are subjects of ongoing debate. Field-derived BAFs are sensitive to variation in seawater HOC concentrations [26], and a common feature of all BAF field studies is high variation in BAF values seen among seasons and geographical areas [27]. Field studies have reported linear relationships between log K OW and BAFs that both deviate [7,9], and coincide with the 1:1 relationship line [12].…”

Bioaccumulation and Toxic Profiling of Nanostructured Particles and Materials

“…Bioaccumulation factors indicated that TiO 2 -NPs and TiO 2 -NTs were largely transferred from low to superior trophic levels [8]. Considering the potential entries of TiO 2 based nanomaterials in organisms, their bioaccumulation throughout the food chain should be regarded with great concern in terms of the overall health of the natural ecosystems [9].…”

Comparison of PoraPak Rxn RP and XAD-2 adsorbents for monitoring dissolved hydrophobic organic contaminants

“…Other reported drawbacks include apparent desorption following sampling (Suffet et al 1978) and the potential for bead swelling and/or shrinking during resin cleaning (Daignault et al 1988). Background interferences associated with XAD-2 resin are typically remedied by processing large volumes of water per sample, often in excess of 500 l (Petrick et al 1996;Borga et al 2005) in addition to time-consuming and solvent-intensive resin cleaning and extraction procedures (Stephens and Mueller 2006). Thus, it is desirable to explore alternative polymeric adsorbents with adsorption characteristics similar to XAD-2 resin, but without the associated resin artifacts.…”