Accumulation of metals relevant for agricultural contamination in gills of European chub (Squalius cephalus)

Abstract

The study of metal bioaccumulation in the gills of European chub (Squalius cephalus) was conducted in September 2009 at the medium-sized rural river Sutla, characterized by agricultural and municipal type of water contamination. The concentration ranges were established for the first time in the soluble, metabolically available fractions of chub gills for 12 metals, which are environmentally extremely relevant and yet only seldom studied, as follows in a decreasing order: K, 225-895 mg L(-1); Na, 78-366 mg L(-1); Ca, 19-62 mg L(-1); Mg, 13-47 mg L(-1); Rb, 164-1762 μg L(-1); Sr, 24-81 μg L(-1); Ba, 13-67 μg L(-1); Mo, 1.3-16 μg L(-1); Co, 0.7-2.7 μg L(-1); Li, 0.4-2.2 μg L(-1); Cs, 0.2-1.9 μg L(-1); and V, 0.1-1.8 μg L(-1). The concentrations of Fe (1.6-6.4 mg L(-1)) and Mn (16-69 μg L(-1)) were also determined and were in agreement with previous reports. By application of general linear modelling, the influence of different abiotic (metal exposure level) and biotic parameters (fish sex, age, size and condition) on metal bioaccumulation was tested. It was established that bioaccumulation of many metals in fish depended on various physiological conditions, wherein Ba could be singled out as metal exhibiting the strongest association with one of biotic parameters, being significantly higher in smaller fish. However, it was also undoubtedly demonstrated that the concentrations of three metals can be applied as reliable indicators of metal exposure even in the conditions of low or moderate water contamination, such as observed in the Sutla River, and those were nonessential elements Li and Cs and essential element Fe. The results of our study present an important contribution to maintenance of high ecological status of European freshwaters, through enrichment of knowledge on the bioaccumulation of various metals in gills of European chub as frequently applied bioindicator species in monitoring of water pollution.

Characterization and identification of selected metal-binding biomolecules from hepatic and gill cytosols of Vardar chub (Squalius vardarensis Karaman, 1928) using various techniques of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry

“…As a consequence of the human activities (such as mining, industry, traffic, and agriculture), environmental contamination with metals, especially contamination of aquatic systems, is steadily increasing and affecting living organisms 1 . For evaluation of the degree of metal contamination and possible pollution of the aquatic ecosystems, fish play an important role due to their key position in many food webs, thus being useful for the assessment of the bioaccumulation and effects of metals originating from water, food and sediment [2][3][4][5] . Metals bioaccumulated in fish organs bind to or interact with cytosolic molecules and can interfere with the cell functions, leading to various deleterious effects [6][7] .…”

“…In our previous work we have implemented offline coupling of SEC-HPLC and high resolution (HR) ICP-MS to determine distributions of several elements (Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Pb, Se, Tl and Zn) among cytosolic biomolecules of the gills and/or liver of three fish species, 4 European chub (Squalius cephalus) [27][28] , Vardar chub (Squalius vardarensis) 29 and brown trout (Salmo trutta) 30 . In our studies, the liver were chosen as a key metabolic and detoxification organ of fish, containing a high amount of various metalloproteins which are characterized by a wide range of molecular masses 7,31 .…”

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“…Beginning of the arrows indicating the metals and metallo ids in fish and end of the arrow indicates water quality parameters. Env iron mental parameters are known to have an impact on the accumu lat ion of heavy metals in fish (Dragun et al, 2016). A lso heavy metal accu mu lation may show differences bet ween different species because of metabolic act iv ity, physiology; feeding hab its of the fish (Papagiannis et al, 2004;Yılmaz et al, 2007).…”

“…This situation may cause to rise over the carry ing capacity in the future and may result damage to liv ing organisms in the river as well as the risk that it may threaten public health by contaminating the irrigation water used for agricu lture to hu man food taken fro m Sarıçay stream. M inor sized rivers have small d ilut ion capacity and it can lead high accumulation in the river, even if the amount of pollution is insignificant (Dragun et al, 2016).…”

Natural Water Quality and Its Suitability in the Northern Tianshan Catchments (Central Asia)

“…Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological characteristics of water [7] [40]. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose [40] [41] [42]. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance can be assessed.…”