Bioaccumulation, trophic transfer, and human health risk of quinolones antibiotics in the benthic food web from a macrophyte-dominated shallow lake, North China

Abstract

The bioaccumulation and trophic transfer of 12 Quinolones (QNs) have been studied in a macrophyte dominated lake-Baiyangdian Lake, China. QNs concentrations were detected in surface water, sediments, and 25 biological samples. The average concentrations of QNs varied from 3.01 ng/L for Oxolinic Acid (OXO) to 174 ng/L for Flumequine (FLU) in water, 3.28 ng/g (dry weight, dw) for OXO to 97.0 ng/g (dw) for FLU in sediments, and from 2.88 ng/g (dw) for Pipemidic Acid (PIP) to 37.7 ng/g (dw) for FLU in biological samples. The values of bioconcentration factors (BCFs) or bioaccumulation factors (BAFs) (in the range of 98.0–723 L/kg) and biota sediment accumulation factor (BSAFs) (in the range of 0.000300–0.124) were indicated that low bioaccumulation ability of target QNs in biological species. Due to the detected frequencies of FLU, Enrofloxacin (ENR), Norfloxacin (NOR), and Ofloxacin (OFL) were higher than 50%, the trophic magnification factors (TMFs) values for those QNs were calculated from three different habitats. The TMFs for those QNs were ranged from 0.840 to 1.10. Thereinto, ENR and NOR were appeared trophic magnification, while FLU and OFL were appeared trophic dilution in the food web of Baiyangdian Lake. Although the TMFs values of QNs were not showed significantly difference among three habitats, the TMFs values of those QNs showed significantly difference between the foodweb with macrophyte species and without macrophyte species. Except FLU, the other TMFs values of these QNs without macrophyte species (in the range of 0.700–1.01) were lower than the TMFs for QNs with macrophyte species. Finally, the results of human health risk for QNs suggested that consumption of fish from Baiyangdian Lake with a considerable risk, thus more standard and residue limits of QNs should be set to decrease the human health risk around this region. Capsule abstractThe spatial variation of bioaccumulation, trophic transfer, and human health risk for 12 QNs has been studied in the benthic foodweb from a macrophyte-dominated shallow lake.