Persistent organic pollutants in the Antarctic coastal environment and their bioaccumulation in penguins

• Published in: Environmental Pollution
• Main Authors: Mwangi, John Kennedy, Lee, Wen-Jhy, Wang, Lin-Chi, Sung, Ping-Jyun, Fang, Lee-Shing, Lee, Yen-Yi, Chang-Chien, Guo-Ping
• Other Authors: Department of Environmental Engineering
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: POPs; PBDEs; PBDD/Fs; Biomagnification; Penguin; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.07.001; http://ir.lib.ncku.edu.tw/handle/987654321/168062; http://ir.lib.ncku.edu.tw/bitstream/987654321/168062/1/index.html

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PBDD/Fs), polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), have been identified in penguins, lichens, soils, and ornithogenic soils in the Antarctic coastal environment in this study. To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has reported PBDD/F and PBB data from Antarctica. The POP mass contents in penguins were in the following order: PCBs >> PBDEs PCDD/Fs;PCBs were the dominant pollutants (6310-144,000 pg/g-lipid), with World Health Organization toxic equivalency values being 2-14 times higher than those of PCDD/Fs. Long-range atmospheric transport is the most primary route by which POPs travel to Antarctica;however, local sources, such as research activities and penguin colonies, also influence POP distribution in the local Antarctic environment. In penguins, the biomagnification factor (BMF) of PCBs was 61.3-3760, considerably higher than that for other POPs. According to BMF data in Adelie penguins, hydrophobic PBDE congeners were more biomagnified at log K-ow > 6, and levels decreased at log K-ow > 7.5 because larger molecular sizes inhibited transfer across cell membranes. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.