Increasing levels and biomagnification of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in Antarctic biota

Organochlorine Pollutants in Western Antarctic Peninsula Sediments and Benthic Deposit Feeders

“…Lipids are considered as the major accumulation compartments in biota for lipophilic PCBs and OCPs (48) . (24,29,30,33) , this is the first comprehensive report on PCB and OCP concentrations in benthic holothurians at the Western Antarctic Peninsula.…”

“…North Atlantic Deep Water from 47°N to 30°S is about 150 years (25 ~ 300 years) and another 95 years (25 ~ 422 years) from 30°S to the Southern Ocean (13,14) Since the first detection of PCBs and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the Antarctic five decades ago (15,16) , there have been dozens of investigations on the occurrence, distribution of POPs in Antarctic air (17)(18)(19)(20) , water (8,21) , soil (2,4) , sediments (22,23) , and biota (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33) . Most of the studies were conducted at the tip of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and Ross Sea area (2,6) .…”

Organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls in air, grass and yak butter from Namco in the central Tibetan Plateau

“…1). HCB was the most abundant compound in clean environment organisms (Braune, 2007;Goerke et al, 2004). For example, HCB was the predominant chemical in the terrestrial herbivores of Arctic (Braune et al, 1999;Salisbury et al, 1992;Thomas et al, 1992) and in caribou from northwest Canada (Elkin and Bethke, 1995).…”

“…Additionally, the lower temperatures are usually associated with higher precipitation, thus additionally promoting the rain and snow scavenging of POPs (Lei and Wania, 2004;Wania and Westgate, 2008). Increased concentrations of POPs in plants, fresh snow, and soil at elevated altitude have been reported in several different high mountain regions (Blais et al, 1998;Davidson et al, 2003;Goerke et al, 2004;Grimalt et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2006). However, studies of the bioaccumulation of POPs along alpine terrestrial food chains are still limited (Shunthirasingham et al, 2013).…”

Determination of dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in soil and moss from Fildes Peninsula, Antarctica

“…Hyun et al [10] found that soil samples collected near the research station had elevated concentrations of chlorinated homologues compared to other samples, which implies that local pollution influences the concentrations in this area. Many studies have suggested that animal activity and TOC can have a large cumulative effect on the distribution of POPs [26][27][28]. The dry weight TOC contents in soil samples from sites S1-S15 are shown in Figure 2.…”