Metal Transfer from Marine Coastal Sediment to Food Chain: Evaluating Strombus (Conomurex) persicus for Monitoring Metal Bioaccumulation

Abstract

Protection of the ecosystems ultimately contributes towards their sustainability. Presence of high levels of toxic metals in seafood is considered as an environmental warning for possible influences on the ecosystem components and public health. This research quantified the concentrations of cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn) in sediments and edible soft tissue of shellfish Strombus(Conomurex)persicus from the Sea of Oman. In both matrices, metals exhibited no general trend in the distribution of metals between the sampling sites. In shellfish, metal levels were below the international maximum permissible guidelines, illustrating safe consumption of this seafood item. The calculated risk factor (Eri) for Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn revealed no ecological damage should be anticipated at the reported metal concentrations in the sediment samples. However, Cd had higher Eri range, suggesting moderate to considerable ecological risk. For transfer of metals from sediment toS. persicus, bioaccumulation factors (BAF) estimated for Cd, Cu, and Zn were above 1.0, indicating tendency of these metals to accumulate in S. persicus. While the BAF and Eri values for Zn were insignificantly correlated, BAF values for Cd and Cu were inversely related to their corresponding Eri values. Nevertheless, correlation was not statistically significant for Cu. For Cd, it seems that sediments having higher Eri may not be necessarily resulting in higher tissue Cd burdens of S. persicus. In conclusion, it appears that the use of correlation between BAF andErito examine transfer of metals from abiotic component to organisms in natural waters is limited.