Mercury concentration in the muscle of seven fish species from Chagan Lake, Northeast China

Abstract

Chagan Lake is located downstream of the Second Songhua River basin in Northeast China. It is one of the top ten inland freshwater lakes, and an important aquatic farm in China. The lake has been receiving large amounts (currently at 1.5 × 10(8) m(3)/a) of water from the river since 1984. This would pose a threat to the aquatic system of the lake because the river was seriously polluted with mercury in 1970s-1980s. The current study is the first to report the total mercury concentrations in fish found in the lake. Mercury concentrations in seven fish species collected from the lake in January 2009 were determined. The related human health risk from fish consumption was also assessed. The average concentration of mercury in the fish was 18.8 μg/kg of wet weight, ranging from 4.5 to 37.6 μg/kg of wet weight. A large difference in the mercury concentrations among the fish species was found. The mercury concentration was found to be higher in carnivorous species and lower in omnivorous and herbivorous species. This demonstrates greater mercury bioaccumulation in fish species at higher trophic levels. Mercury concentrations in fish showed significant positive correlations with age, length, and weight. No significant relationship was found between mercury concentrations in fish and the habitat preferences. Mercury concentrations in fish from the lake were within the limits of the international and national standards of China established for mercury. According to the reference doses established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the maximum safe consuming quantity considering all the fish was 297.3 g/day/person, which was more than five times as much as the current quantity (50 g/day/person) consumed by the local residents. This investigation indicates that the historical pollution of the Second Songhua River has not caused mercury bioaccumulation in fish muscle tissue of Chagan Lake. The present consumption of fish from the lake in the local area does not pose a threat to human health.

Mercury concentration in muscle, bellyfat and liver from Oreochromis niloticus and Lates niloticus consumed in Lake Albert fishing communities in Uganda

“…Total length and species were negatively correlated to mercury levels in tilapia and muscle of the two fish species (Table 3 ). These results are in line with Zhu et al ( 2012 ) who looked at china fish species and found that age in addition to weight and length predicted mercury levels in fish muscle. The present study raises the possibility that large sized fish possessed more Mercury in Nile perch muscle (Sackett, Cope, Rice, & Aday, 2013 ).…”

“…Some researchers believe that there is no difference in accumulation of mercury based on whether the fish is carnivorous or omnivorous, (Bidone, Castilhos, Santos, Souza, & Lacerda, 1997 ) while others have established a clear pattern of bioaccumulation of mercury in fish i.e. carnivorous fish have higher levels than the herbivorous and omnivorous fish a pointer towards the nutrition role in heavy metal toxicity (Zhu, Yan, Wang, & Pan, 2012 ). Looking now at the accumulation levels of mercury in the different parts of the fish i.e.…”

Risk estimates for children and pregnant women exposed to mercury-contaminated Oreochromis niloticus and Lates niloticus in Lake Albert Uganda

“…Choice of the oral reference dose is critical in determining the health risks the vulnerable community is exposed to i.e. use of the general population or vulnerable population oral reference dose (Zhu et al, 2012 ). The results of this study reveal health risk when HQs were computed for the vulnerable population in the community.…”

“…To date several studies have used the levels of Mercury in the different fish species and fish parts to estimate the risk for humans and involves hazard ratios, acceptable risk levels, exposure levels, PTWI and transferable factor (Burger & Gochfeld, 2005 ; Sidhu, 2003 ; Tang et al, 2009 ; Zhu, Yan, Wang, & Pan, 2012 ). One of the shortfalls of these studies is the generalization of the risk across age groups and failure to extrapolate the risk to the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) accrued; a gap the current work is going to fill for the fishing communities in the Lake Albert.…”

Toxicidad aguda de cloruro de mercurio (HGCL2) en Cachama blanca; <i>Piaractus brachypomus</i> (Cuvier, 1818)

“…El ambiente acuático está normalmente expuesto a una gran cantidad de tóxicos, consecuencia de intervenciones antropogénicas incluyendo la contaminación por residuos industriales (Acherman 2007), fumigación con herbicidas organofosforados como glifosato (Ramírez-Duarte et al 2008 y contaminación con metales pesados como el mercurio (Marrugo-Negrete et al 2008, zhu et al 2012.…”