Comparative characteristics of the trace elemental composition of chum salmon Oncorhynchus keta Walbaum, 1792 from the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk

• Published in: Marine Biological Journal
• Main Authors: N. K. Khristoforova, A. V. Litvinenko, V. Yu. Tsygankov, M. V. Kovalchuk
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: A. O. Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas of RAS 2021
• Subjects: Pacific salmon; chum salmon; Sakhalin-Kuril Region; Sea of Okhotsk; Primorsky Krai; Sea of Japan; Biology (General); QH301-705.5; Keta; Okhotsk; Pacific; Patience; Pink salmon; Sakhalin
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.21072/mbj.2021.06.4.08; https://doaj.org/article/fda4222bf78b4139a86a55c2db36a8bd

Content of trace elements (iron, zinc, copper, nickel, lead, and cadmium) was determined in the most popular species of Pacific salmon on the consumer market – chum salmon Oncorhynchus keta, which is the second largest catch in Russian waters (after pink salmon O. gorbuscha). Metal content in fish organs and tissues (muscle tissue, liver, and gonads) was determined by the atomic absorption method using a Shimadzu AA-6800 spectrophotometer in flame and flameless atomizers from sample extracts; the latter ones were obtained by decomposition of weighed portions of concentrated HNO3 (high purity) in a MARS 6 complex using standard samples with known concentrations. The data was statistically processed in SPSS Statistics 21. Sexually mature individuals of chum salmon (five specimens of males and females on each spot) were sampled in autumn 2018 in storage cages of salmon hatcheries on the Firsovka River (southeastern Sakhalin, Gulf of Patience) and Reidovaya River (Iturup Island, Kuril Islands), as well as in October 2019 in breeder holding cages on the Poima River (southwestern Primorye, the Sea of Japan). Muscle tissue, liver, and gonads were sampled from every individual. The elements determined were clearly divided according to content values into two groups depending on the sampling spot: Cd and Pb prevailed in organs and tissues of chum salmon from the Sakhalin-Kuril Region of the Sea of Okhotsk, whereas Fe, Zn, Cu, and Ni prevailed in the Sea of Japan fish. The reason for heavy metal contrasting distribution in fish organs and tissues is obviously environmental geochemical conditions formed in salmon feeding areas and on migration routes. In the Sea of Japan, practically enclosed, poorly connected with the Pacific Ocean by several shallow straits, the aquatic environment is under significant anthropogenic, technogenic, and terrigenous load (household and industrial drains, surface washing from coastal areas, and combustion of hydrocarbon fuel by ships). In the Sakhalin-Kuril basin, it is affected by natural ...