The Mussel Watch

Abstract

The levels of four sets of pollutants (heavy-metals, artificial radionuclides, petroleum components, and halogenated hydrocarbons), have been measured in U.S. coastal waters, using bivalves as sentinel organisms. The strategies of carrying out this programme are outlined and the results from the first year's work are given. Varying degrees of pollution in U.S. coastal waters have been indicated by elevated levels of pollutants in the bivalves, which comprised certain species of mussels and oysters and were collected at over one hundred localities.

Metals in molluscs and associated bottom sediments of the southern baltic

“…The ability of marine mussels to biologically incorporat9 trace metals in their tissues has been well estabhshed; most of the studies have been carried out on the soft tissue (Amiard et al, 1986;Bloom & Ayling, 1977;Bryan, 1980Bryan, , 1983Coleman et al, 1986;Cossa et al, 1979;Davies & Pirie, 1980;Di Giulio & Scanlon, 1985;Farrington et al, 1983;Galloway et al, 1983;Gault et al, 1983;Goldberg, 1975;Goldberg et al, 1978Goldberg et al, , 1983Hung et al, 1981Hung et al, , 1983Johnson & D'Auria, 1980;Julshamn, 1981;Karbe et al, 1977;Langston, 1986;Martinci~ et al, 1984;M6ller et al, 1983;Phillips, 1976aPhillips, , 1976bPhillips, , 1977bPhillips, , I977c, 1978Popham & D'Auria, 1983a, 1983bRitz et al, 1982;Segar et al, 1971;Slabyj & Carpenter, 1977;Szefer, 1986;Szefer & Szefer, 1985;Szefer & Wenne, 1987). However, the number of articles on the concentration or distribution of metals in shell material, particularly relating the metal concentration in the soft tissue to that in the shell is scanty (A1- Dabbas et al, 1984;Bertine & Goldberg, 1972;Carriker et al, 1980bCarriker et al, , 1982Chow et al, 1976;Ferrell et al, 1973;<...>…”

Relationship of parasites and pathologies to contaminant body burden in sentinel bivalves: NOAA Status and Trends ‘Mussel Watch’ Program

“…As Mussel Watch was designed to document the geographic distribution and temporal trends of contamination on a national scale, most sites were placed away from known point sources of contamination, poorly ushed industrial waterways, and pilings or metal buoys (O'Connor and Beliae , 1995;O'Connor, 1996). Sampling sites of an earlier Mussel Watch program (Goldberg et al, 1978 were, when possible, incorporated into the current Mussel Watch program (O'Connor, 1994).…”

A review of current applications of mass spectrometry for biomarker/molecular tracer elucidations

“…Many of those compounds are of environmental concern due to their production quantities, toxicity, persistence, and tendency to bioaccumulate (Schwarzenbach, Gschwend, & Imboden, 1993DeCaprio, 1997;Eganhouse, 1997;Takada et al, 1997;Aboul-Kassim & Simoneit, 2001). They can enter the hydrosphere (Hites, 1973(Hites, , 1977Lopez-Avila & Hites, 1980;Poiger et al, 1996;Leeming et al, 1997;Suter et al, 1997Suter et al, , 1999Simonich et al, 2000), atmosphere (Atlas et al, 1993;Baker & Hites, 1997;Hillery, Basu, & Hites, 1997;Strandberg et al, 2001;Whiteaker & Prather, 2003), geosphere into soils and sediments (Hom et al, 1974;Eglinton, Simoneit, & Zoro, 1975;Beller & Simoneit, 1986, 1988Kumata, Takada, & Ogura, 1997;Reiser, Toljander, & Giger, 1997;Stoll et al, 1997;Rogge, Medeiros, & Simoneit, 2004a-c), and up the food chain in biota (Risebrough et al, 1967;Bowes et al, 1973;Goldberg et al, 1978;Spitzer et al, 1978;Jarman et al, 1992Jarman et al, , 1993Simonich & Hites, 1995a). These applications of MS will keep increasing as more problems become evident, and as the sensitivities of the instrumental methods increase to ever-improved detection limits.…”