Heavy Metals in Blue Mussels ( Mytilus edulis ) in the Bergen Harbor Area, Western Norway

Abstract

Heavy metal discharges to the marine environment are of great concern all over the world. Both essential (e.g., Fe, Zn, Cu) and non essential (e.g., Hg, Cd, Pb) metals are toxic to living organisms when subjected to high concentrations (Underwood and Mertz 1987). Many heavy metals accumulate in organisms and some also accumulate in the food chain (Ruiter 1995). The anthropogenic heavy metal outlets can in this way both reduce marine species diversity and ecosystems. Further, by consuming seafood, humans will be exposed to the metals with a potential danger to human health. Goldberg (1975) proposed to use marine mussels to monitor contamination levels of coastal waters. Since then marine mussels, especially the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis), has been used widely as a surveillance organism (Claisse 1989;Cossa 1988). The blue mussel is regarded a suitable species for this purpose because it accumulates metals, is sessile, has a relatively long life span, is large enough for individual analysis, can tolerate a relatively wide range of temperature and salinity regimes (Phillips 1977), and can also synthesize the metal-binding protein, metallothionein, for metal detoxification (Köhler and Riisgård 1982).

Heavy Metals in Seafood Mussels. Risks for Human Health

“…In addition, toxic metals may be accumulated in marine organisms up to levels which may affect the mussels directly, e.g., by killing their larvae or damaging shell growth, thus affecting their quantity and quality. Moreover, because the pollutant trace elements are potentially detrimental to human health, their presence can limit the quantity of mussels humans can consume, Andersen et al ( 1996 ) .…”

Assessment of benthic changes during 20 years of monitoring the Mexican Salina Cruz Bay

“…Lying in the second trophic level in the waters' ecosystem, mollusks have long been known to accumulate both essential and non-essential trace elements in aquatic ecosystems (Dallinger and Rainbow 1993). Many researchers have reported the potentiality of using mollusks, as bioindicators or biomarkers for monitoring heavy metal contaminations in aquatic system (Liang et al 2004;Philips 1980;Bryan et al 1985;Cossa 1988;Philips and Rainbow 1993;Andersen et al 1996;Scanes 1996;Claisse et al 2001;Szefer et al 2002;de Astudillo et al 2002).…”

“…Studies on the pollution in Gulf of Paria (de Astudillo et al 2002), Vienna waters (Gundacker 2000), French coast (Claisse et al 2001) and Sydney's coastal waters (Andersen et al 1996) had used biomarkers to monitor the heavy metal pollutions in aquatic systems and the results showed that various degrees of heavy metal pollution existed in mollusks.…”

Trace metal distributions in Posidonia oceanica and sediments from Taranto Gulf (Ionian Sea, Southern Italy)

“…There is currently a great interest in using living organisms as pollution biomonitors in aquatic ecosystems (Goldberg, 1986;Andersen et al, 1996;Morillo et al, 200�;Usero et al, 200�;Demirezen � Aksoy, 2006), given that methods used previously, such as water chemical analysis, do not provide sufficient information on the bioavailability of metals found in the environment (Morillo et al,200�). In the Mediterranean Sea, the endemic seagrass P. oceanica (L.) Delile has been used as a metal bioindicator for two decades (Maserti et al, 1988;Malea et al, 1994;Capiomont et al, 2000;Campanella et al, 2001;Lafabrie et al, 2008).…”