Copper (Cu) is a heavy metal that is essential for life but toxic at high concentrations. This toxic effect is used on boats to prevent biofouling on boat hulls by painting the hulls with antifouling paint that contain high levels of Cu. The Cu is slowly diffused out in the water and accumulated by animals higher up in the food chain. In order to test the effects of marinas on Cu bioaccumulation in invertebrates, I sampled molluscs at seven marinas and seven shore sites on the Swedish west coast. Two molluscs with different feeding behaviours, one grazer, the periwinkle (Littorina littorea) and one filter feeder, the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) were used as study organisms. Both species were sampled at each location within 50 m from each other. Body Cu concentration of both species was measured with a Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (FAAS). Cu concentration of periwinkle soft body tissue was generally higher than in mussel soft body tissue. In addition, periwinkle tissue Cu concentration reacted strongly positively to the presence of marinas, whereas mussel tissue Cu concentrations did not. This shows that contamination from marinas affects the grazing periwinkle but not the filter feeding blue mussel. Thus, for biomonitoring purposes, grazers may be more suited as indicator organisms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hh-39942 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Sjökvist, Tomas |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för ekonomi, teknik och naturvetenskap, 9310092474 |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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