Organochlorine compounds in subtropical and tropical marine organisms: a meta-analysis.

A search of the published and unpublished literature was conducted for analytical data on organochlorine compounds in tissues of subtropical and tropical marine organisms. The search was limited to reports of analyte concentrations in whole body or muscle tissue that were minimally determined by chromatographic procedures. A total of 1564 sample analyses consisting of 4431 analyte determinations were obtained for hard and soft corals, sponges, benthic seagrasses and algae, gastropods, fish and shellfish, and 'market-basket' (processed seafood) samples. For comparative purposes, data that were reported on a wet- or fresh-weight basis were uniformly converted to a common dry-weight estimate by dividing the wet-weight values by five (i.e., 80% water, 20% dry-weight tissue). Due to the large variation in analytical procedures, target analytes, chromatographic interpretations, and reporting units, the data were pooled by organochlorine-compound class (i.e., chlorinated cyclodienes, chlorinated aliphatics, chlorinated phenols, and chlorinated terpenes, hexachlorocyclohexanes, and polychlorinated biphenyls). A meta-analysis of the resulting database yielded a mean analyte concentration of 1594 +/- 8768 ng g-1 (dry weight), a median concentration of 23 ng g-1 (dry weight), and a mean of 2.89 analytes per sample; the corresponding mean tissue burden is 4608 ng g-1 (dry weight), the equivalent of 922 ng g-1 on a wet-weight basis. It was also found that the chlorinated aliphatics (i.e., DDT and its metabolites) constituted 40.15% of the reported analyte determinations.

Evaluation of bioassays to monitor surface microlayer toxicity in tropical marine waters.

Bioassays were developed, using embryos of: coral,Montastraea faveolata; graysby, Epinephelus cruentatus;grouper, Epinephelus adscensionis x gruttatus (hybrid); queenconch, Strombus gigas; rock-boring urchin, Echinodermatalucunter; spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus; variegatedurchin, Lytechinus variegatus; winged pearl oyster, Pteriacolymbus; and yellowtail snapper, Ocyurus chrysurus. Relativesensitivities and precison of various species-endpoint combinations wereevaluated using three reference toxicants: copper, sodium dodecyl sulfate,and Dibrom(R). The 24-h P. colymbus embryo test had the best overallsensitivity and exhibited a high degree of precision. However, oyster embryoswere difficult to obtain and did not aggregate at the air-water interface.Therefore, the P. colymbus embryo test was deemed unsuitable for useas a bioassay for monitoring sea-surface microlayer (SSML) toxicity. Testsbased on normal development of L. variegatus to the early pluteus 3stage and percent normal-live C. nebulosus larvae at 48 h wererelatively sensitive and exhibited good replicability and repeatability. TheL. variegatus urchin embryo test was also found to be highlyreproducible. The results of this comparative study indicated that L.variegatus and C. nebulosus were suitable surrogates forcoral-reef species in toxicity assessments of the SSML.