Factors which Influence Bioaccumulation

The studies which have focussed on the uptake and bioaccumulation from food, sediment or soil show that many factors significantly influence bioaccumulation, such as food composition, feeding rate, developmental stage or age, the hydrophobicity of the contaminant, the contact time between contaminant and soil/sediment, the nature and amount of organic carbon and other soil/se-diment characteristics, the behavior of soil/sediment organisms, etc. 

Table 2. Biotic and abiotic factors which can influence the bioconcentration, bioaccumulation and/or biomagnification of chemicals in fish and other aquatic organisms...

Bioaccumulation can be influenced by several factors, which results in most cases apparently, and in some cases actually, in low bioaccumulation factors. 

Bioaccumulation is the critical process by which xenobiotics can influence the living species in the aquatic ecosystems. This process can be divided into two types one involving bioconcentration, and the other biomagnification, which is more complex. Bioconcentration refers to an increase in the concentration of a chemical in the organism over a period of time compared with the chemical s concentration in the aqueous phase and is a net result of uptake, storage and elimination. The bioconcentration factor (BCF) is defined as the ratio of the concentration of a chemical in an aquatic organism to that in the aqueous... 

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