Bioaccumulation in aquatic systems: methodological approaches, monitoring and assessment

Abstract

Bioaccumulation, the accumulation of a chemical in an organism relative to its level in the ambient medium, is of major environmental concern. Thus, monitoring chemical concentrations in biota are widely and increasingly used for assessing the chemical status of aquatic ecosystems. In this paper, various scientific and regulatory aspects of bioaccumulation in aquatic systems and the relevant critical issues are discussed. Monitoring chemical concentrations in biota can be used for compliance checking with regulatory directives, for identification of chemical sources or event-related environmental risk assessment. Assessing bioaccumulation in the field is challenging since many factors have to be considered that can affect the accumulation of a chemical in an organism. Passive sampling can complement biota monitoring since samplers with standardised partition properties can be used over a wide temporal and geographical range. Bioaccumulation is also assessed for regulation of chemicals of environmental concern whereby mainly data from laboratory studies on fish bioaccumulation are used. Field data can, however, provide additional important information for regulators. Strategies for bioaccumulation assessment still need to be harmonised for different regulations and groups of chemicals. To create awareness for critical issues and to mutually benefit from technical expertise and scientific findings, communication between risk assessment and monitoring communities needs to be improved. Scientists can support the establishment of new monitoring programs for bioaccumulation, e.g. in the frame of the amended European Environmental Quality Standard Directive.

First report of detection of microcystins in farmed mediterranean mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis in Thermaikos gulf in Greece

“…Our study indicates that microcystins can be bioaccumulated in mussels, a finding that is in accordance with the literature [ 42 – 46 ]. The fact that mussels are filter feeders, enables them to bioaccumulate environmental pollutants [ 47 ], like microcystins [ 48 ]. A study in the brackish waters of Curonian lagoon [ 49 ] in Lithuania, revealed that mussels Dreissena polymorpha (zebra mussels), accumulated microcystins at high concentrations, up to 139 ng g −1 dry weight analyzed by ELISA and 284 ng g − dry weight by PPIA.…”

Lipid Metabolism Alteration by Endocrine Disruptors in Animal Models: An Overview

“…PPARs have a pivotal role in regulating metabolism, resulting the primary lipid sensors in vertebrates and being highly conserved between humans and zebrafish ( 17 ). Poly and mono unsaturated fatty acids (FA), eicosanoids and lipophilic hormones are PPAR natural ligands ( 18 ) with different affinity to PPAR isoforms and induce the expression of genes and enzymes involved in lipid metabolism.…”

An assessment of applicability of existing approaches to predicting the bioaccumulation of conventional substances in nanomaterials

“…Measuring bioaccumulation through the experimental determination of a bioaccumulation factor (BAF), bioconcentration factor (BCF), or biomagnification factor (BMF) is often challenging because it depends on many abiotic (such as water pH, salinity, and concentration of organic compounds) and biotic factors (such as lipid content, age, and/or sex of an organism; Glenn and Klaine 2013;Sch€ afer et al 2015). When there are no experimentally determined BAF, BCF, or BMF values, the partitioning of a chemical between aqueous and organic phases is often used as a surrogate measure of its bioaccumulation potential.…”