Arsenic speciation and spatial and interspecies differences of metal concentrations in mollusks and crustaceans from a S
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Arsenic speciation and spatial and interspecies differences of metal concentrations in mollusks and crustaceans from a South China estuary Wei Zhang • Wen-Xiong Wang • Li Zhang
Accepted: 1 March 2013 / Published online: 9 March 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Arsenic speciation and concentrations were determined in mollusks and crustaceans in the intertidal zone from twelve locations in Zhanjiang estuary, South China. Metal concentrations (Ag, As, Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn) were also concurrently determined in these species. Arsenic speciation analysis showed that the less-toxic arsenobetaine (AsB) constituted 80.6–98.8 % of all As compounds, and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) constituted 0.47–3.44 %. Monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) and As(V) were only detected in the whelk Drupa fiscella and the crab Heteropilumnus ciliatus, respectively. Arsenite [As(III)] was not detected in any of the sampled specimens, but there were also unidentified other As species. A strong spatial variation of metals in the oyster Saccostrea cucullata was found in the estuary, confirming that oysters can be used as a good biomonitor of metal contamination in the studied area. The concentrations of eight metals in the studied mollusks and crustaceans clearly revealed that these invertebrates accumulated different metals to different degrees. Furthermore, As, Cd, Cu, Hg, and Pb contents in mollusks and crustacean samples were below the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) safe concentrations, thus there was no
W. Zhang L. Zhang (&) Key Laboratory of Marine Bio-resources Sustainable Utilization, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China e-mail: [email protected] W. Zhang e-mail: [email protected] W.-X. Wang Division of Life Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected]
obvious health risk from the intake of the metals through marine mollusks and crustaceans consumption. Keywords Arsenic speciation Metals Mollusks Crustaceans
Introduction According to the China Marine Environmental Quality Communique in 2001 (Zhan et al. 2002), most estuaries and bays had high contamination of metals. With the rapid economic growth and increase in population density in the coastal regions over the past two decades, large amounts of pollutants from industrial, agricultural, and urban origin have entered the coastal environments. In a recent study on trace element contamination in marine wild fish collected from the coastal waters of China (from north to south), arsenic (As) was the trace element of most serious concern in fish (Zhang and Wang 2012). The highest As concentrations in fish were detected in Huilai (36.1 lg/g) and Zhanjiang (134 lg/g) of South China. Interestingly, the highest amounts of As were only found in the demersal fish species (Cynoglossus joyneri and Trypauchen vagina), which strongly suggested that sediment pollution and ingestion of benthic preys may contribute
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