HA5 Bioaccumulation and Biomagnifications
203 Oregon Ballroom
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday
() The accumulation of sedimentary PCBs in bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) tapoles from the Upper Hudson River.
Steinbacher, J1, Balk, C2, Jahn, K3, Brosnan, T1, 1 NOAA Damage Assessment Center, Silver Spring, MD, USA2 NY Department of Environmental Conservation, Gloversville, NY, USA3 US Fish and Wildlife Service, Cortland, NY, USA
ABSTRACT- Natural resources of the Hudson River have been contaminated through past and ongoing discharges of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The Hudson River Natural Resource Trustees − New York State, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of the Interior − are conducting a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) to assess and restore those natural resources injured by PCBs. In August 2003, the Trustees collected near-shore sediment samples and bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) tadpoles from the Hudson River for contaminant analysis. This work was undertaken by the Trustees to assist in determining the extent to which bullfrog tadpoles and near-shore sediments in the Hudson River are currently contaminated with PCBs, and to determine if additional pathway and injury assessment studies focused on bullfrog or other amphibian species should be conducted as part of the Hudson River NRDA. Bullfrog tadpole composites and co-located sediment composites were collected from six study sites of known PCB contamination on the Hudson River between Bakers Falls and Schodack Island, and two reference sites. The total PCB concentrations (as sum of homologues) of tadpoles and sediments from the study sites ranged from 354 − 9280 parts per billion (ppb) and 2640 − 57600 ppb, respectively. Tadpole and sediment PCB concentrations from reference sites were statistically different (p<0.05) than study sites and ranged from 15 − 108 ppb and 508 − 834 ppb, respectively. Tadpole and sediment PCB concentrations were well correlated among the sites (R2 = 0.89). The PCB congener composition of sediments from the study sites are dominated by lower chlorinated biphenyls and differ markedly from congener distributions in the reference sediments where the heavier molecular weight congeners are more prevalent. A similar trend was evident in tadpoles, with lower chlorinated compounds comprising the majority of the tissue residue in tadpoles from the six study sites.
Key words: polychlorinated biphenyls, hudson river, amphibians, accumulation