Abstract-The dietary uptake of 12 halogenated diaromatic compounds was studied using northern pike (Esox lucius L.) fed with rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum)). Before the trout were fed to the pike, they had been injected with a cocktail of five polychlorinated biphenyls, four polychlorinated naphthalenes, and three polybrominated diphenyl ethers, dissolved in rainbow trout lipid. The reported uptake efficiencies (E) were in the range 35 to 90% and differ in some respect from earlier studies. The E-values for those substances with effective cross sections (ECS) Ͼ9.5 Å were considerably higher than expected if the membrane permeation at dietary uptake was restricted as proposed previously in the literature. There was no hydrophobicity dependency of the total dietary uptake efficiency as suggested by an earlier proposed empirical model. The difference between the results presented here and earlier studies is likely to depend on cotransport with lipids and/or proteins through a mediated, possibly active uptake of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOC) in the gastrointestinal tract enabled by the actual exposure method. For the proposed mediated/active uptake of HOCs, the uptake efficiency varied with molecular weight and was greatest for a molecular weight of approximately 450.

The recycling longevity of hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) within the global environment is set by their permanent removal through processes such as degradation and burial in geological reservoirs. More than 90% of the global sediment burial of organic carbon (OC) occurs on the continental shelves, representing < 10% of the earth's ocean area. The propensity of HOCs to associate with organic matter, and the proximity of most population centers and thus presumed source areas to coastal regions, led us to investigate shelf sediments as a depository of significance for global HOC budgets. Here, the global inventory and burial fluxes of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in continental shelf sediments were estimated on a congener-specific basis from a database of 4214 distinct continental shelf surface sediment samples. To account for near-urban sampling bias, the locations of each datum relative to nearest population center were classified as Local (< 1 km), Regional (1-10 km), or Remote (> 10 km), according to a comprehensive vector map of the world (Digital Chart of the World) in a GIS environment. The global inventory of, for instance, PCB congener 153 was 1200 ton (95% confidence limit maximum: 2100 ton; and minimum 720 ton). The Remote sub-basin of the North Atlantic contains approximately half of the global shelf sediment inventory for most of the PCB congeners studied. The shelf sediment inventories of individual PCB congeners constitute significant fractions of their recently updated cumulative historical global emissions estimates. The estimated inventory in the shelf corresponds to about 10% of maximum emission estimates for lower-chlorinated congeners. However, for the more bioaccumulable, higher-chlorinated, congeners the shelf reservoirs appear to account for up to 80% of the estimated maximum cumulative global emissions. These shelf inventories represent 1-6% of the global industrial production of PCBs. The global burial fluxes were estimated to be on the order of 8-24 ton/yr each for the eight major congeners investigated, again, with the shelf constituting a more significant removal sink of the more chlorinated congeners. The permanent removal into deeper shelf sediments of PCB153 and PCB180 suggests that the global environmental mean residence times of these pollutants are on the order of 110 and 70 years, respectively. Hence, even after production and direct releases have been halted, we may expect to be exposed to such persistent pollutants for decades and centuries to come.

Due to long equilibration times, growth of planktonic organisms significantly dilutes cell concentrations of adsorbed highly hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs). Behavior of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in field samples of 0.2−2, 2−25, and >100 μm particle size fractions confirmed this. The in-situ log K oc values showed a near linear relationship with hydrophobicity (log K ow) with a slope of 1.2 for the 0.2−2 μm size fraction, whereas the in-situ log K oc values remained within 1 log unit throughout the entire log K ow interval for the 2−25 μm size fraction. In the largest size fraction, there was a weak positive relationship between log K oc and log K ow with a linear regression slope of 0.28. The results imply that equilibrium concentrations in planktonic organisms cannot be used in food chain modeling. Observed high equilibrium log K oc values relative to log K ow values are discussed in terms of solute−solvent interactions in the octanol−water system as opposed to the organic carbon−water system in the field.

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