Heavy Metal Contents in Tissues of Dominant Species of the Benthos and in Bottom Sediments of Zolotoi Rog Bay, Sea of Japan

Abstract

Municipal and anthropogenic inputs into the ports of Peter the Great Bay have led to foci of local-and regional-scale pollution where the natural course of biological processes is disturbed [3]. Here, the content of heavy metals in the bottom sediments, pore water, and near-bottom water is far higher than in the water column [17,28]. High environmental levels of heavy metals cause metal accumulation by aquatic organisms [13].Study of heavy metal accumulation by bottom organisms and metal toxicity in the biota is part of the study of pollution effects on aquatic ecosystems. Up to now, the interaction of bottom biota and pollutants (particularly heavy metals) has largely been examined for microorganisms [12,15], phyto-and zooplankton [7], and seston-feeding [8,15] and fouling organisms [4,5]. Small representatives of the infauna have not been investigated [1,28] in this respect. Polychaetes and round worms are the major functional components of the biota in the bottom sediments. They can build up a significant biomass and play an important role in the transformation of organic compounds of the sea bottom [7,18]. However, the mechanism of the effect of pollution on the metabolism and numbers of marine bottom communities is inadequately known.The aim of this study was to determine the heavy metals contents in the tissues of dominant species of the benthos and in the bottom sediments of chronically polluted areas. MATERIALS AND METHODSSamples of silt sediments were collected in 2000-2003 in Zolotoi Rog Bay (Sea of Japan) near the port of Vladivostok from the 13 m depth at Wharf no. 44. Animals were collected from samples in Zolotoi Rog Bay and Vostok Bay in 2003.Sediment samples were washed with seawater through gauze (mesh size 0.1 × 0.1 mm). Sediment was placed in petri dishes and examined, by parts, under a stereomicroscope for the presence of bottom worm. Worms were isolated and sorted into species. Two to 100 specimens (lengths of 9-100 mm) of each species were taken for heavy metal analyses. To remove sediment particles, the worms were washed with seawater and then placed for 1-4 days in separate vessels with filtered seawater to purge the intestine.For each species, the measurements of the heavy metal concentrations were made in three samples with the number of worms depending on their size. For atomic absorption analysis, worm samples were prepared using the method of acid mineralization according to standard procedure GOST 26929-94 [2]. Wet tis-ECOLOGY Abstract -Data on heavy metal contents in polychaetes and free-living nematodes inhabiting the bottom sediments of Zolotoi Rog Bay near the port of Vladivostok are reported. Chronically high contents of heavy metals (Fe, Cu, Zn, and Cd) were found in the bottom sediments and in the infauna. The levels of some toxic elements in tissues of the polychaete Dorvillea (Schistomeringos) japonica inhabiting polluted sediments of Zolotoi Rog Bay were higher than in worms of this species from relatively clean areas of the Sea of Japan. Similar high concentrations of Fe w...

Trace and major elements distribution and transfer within a benthic system: Polychaete Chaetopterus variopedatus, commensal crab Polyonyx gibbesi, worm tube, and sediments

“…In general, polychaete tissues presented the highest concentration of Zn among the studied matrices (Table 2). The levels of Zn were higher than values found for the same species in Western Australia (Table 3, Talbot and Chegwidden, 1982), but were similar to those reported for other species of polychaetes elsewhere (Waring et al, 2006;Davydkova et al, 2005;Alam et al, 2010;Casado-Martinez et al, 2013). Shellfish (42.7-182 lg g À1 ) collected in the Todos os Santos Bay (Souza et al, 2011) presented the same burden of Zn than C. variopedatus.…”

“…Deposit feeders are directly exposed to contaminants mainly through two routes, contaminants in sediments and in pore waters. The ability to accumulate trace elements, as in most of the other biomonitor species, can be very variable among polychaetes since several factors affect the incorporation/accumulation rate (Davydkova et al, 2005;Waring et al, 2006). Substratum type, physical-chemistry of the environment, bioavailability of contaminants, feeding strategies, physiology (Ng and Wang, 2004;Waring and Maher, 2005;Sánchez-Marín and Beiras, 2008;Bird et al, 2011;Hans et al, 2011;Freitas et al, 2012) and life stages (Méndez and Páez-Osuna, 1998;Coimbra, 2003) are examples of variables that influence the uptake, elimination and accumulation of contaminants.…”

Macrobenthic community response to copper in Shelter Island Yacht Basin, San Diego Bay, California

“…We hypothesize that (a) reductions in macrobenthic density, biomass, body size In general, little information is available on Cu concentration in the macrofauna of bottom sediments (Davydkova et al, 2005), but given the diversity of microhabitat, developmental biology, feeding modes and lifestyles among the macrobenthic taxa, we can expect a large range of exposures and sensitivities to Cu contamination. Thus we hypothesize that invertebrate tissue Cu concentrations will not directly reflect Cu in sediment, and that macrofaunal species' tolerance and sensitivity to Cu concentrations, assessed by tissue concentrations and distribution patterns, will vary across and within taxa.…”

Impact of local iron enrichment on the small benthic biota in the deep Arctic Ocean

“…In general, free-living nematodes are described as the last to disappear from heavily polluted bottom sediments (Heip et al, 1985;Davydkova et al, 2005). High heavy metal resistance in nematodes (Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, Hg) has been reported (Davydkova et al, 2005 and citations therein), where non-selective deposit-feeders and omnivores seem to be extremely non-sensitive (Davydkova et al, 2005).…”