Aquatic biota mussels

Median BCF values in aquatic biota exposed to various concentrations of Pb+2 for 14 to 140 days varied from about 42 in fish to 2570 in mussels intermediate values were 536 for oysters, 500 for insects, 725 for algae, and 1700 for snails (USEPA 1985). There are several notable exceptions to this array significantly higher values have been reported in crustacean hepatopancreas (Heyraud and Cherry 1979), in various species of freshwater invertebrates (Spehar et al. 1978), in fish bone (Demayo et al. 1982) and liver (Haux and Larsson 1982), and in whole oysters (Zaroogian et al. 1979). In oysters, for example, BCF values varied from 3450 to 6600 after exposure to solutions... 

In all cases, the concentrations of malathion and fenitrothion measured in water (up to 5.8 and 1.2 pg/L, respectively) were below the LC50 (lethal concentration 50%) values reported for these compounds in oysters and mussels, which range between 2.7 and 278 mg/L in the case of malathion, and between 10.3 pg/L and 123 mg/L in the case of fenitrothion (http //www.pesticideinfo.org). However, it has to be stressed that these LC50 values express acute toxicity, that both malathion and fenitrothion might be bioaccumulated by molluscs (as their detection in biota suggests), and that aquatic organisms are exposed to a variety of contaminants, some of which could show synergetic or additive effects [40]. Further matters of... 

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