Accumulation and excretion of organophosphorous pesticides by willow shiner

Abstract

Bioconcentration and excretion of 8 organophosphorous pesticides were studied for willow shiner ( Gnathopogon caerulescens ). The average bioconcentration factors (BCF) in the whole body of the fish after 24 – 168 hr exposure were 0.8 for dichlorvos, 76 for salithion, 18 for methidathion, 29 for pyridaphenthion, 481 for fenthion and 36 for phosmet, Further, the BCF values of the other pesticides after 168 hr exposure were 713 for phenthoate and 1682 for EPN. The correlation between n-octanol-water partition coefficients (P OW) and BCF in willow shiner was investigated for 19 pesticides studied here and already reported. The correlation factor (r) was not so high (0.6819, n=19) but higher (0.9085, n=18) in case excluding captan. The excretion rate constants (k) from the whole body of willow shiner were 0.20 hr −1 for salthion, 0.05 hr −1 for phenthoate, 0.27 hr −1 for methidathion, 0.20 hr −1 for pyridaphenthion, 0.07 hr −1 for fenthion, 0.04 hr −1 for EPN and 0.28 hr −1 for phosmet.