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Mercury concentrations were studied in important edible species from an area of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea, near Mt. Amiata (Tuscany, Italy), affected by mercury contamination. The studied species were: Nephrops norvegicus (Norway lobster), Parapenaeus longirostris (pink shrimp), Merluccius merluccius(hake) and Eledone cirrhosa (horned octopus). From the results it was found that in N. norvegicus and M. merluccius the accumulation was exponential, while in the other two species it was linear. In females ofN. norvegicus, a sharper increase of Hg concentration beyond three centimetres of carapace length was observed and explained by the reduction in growth rate after sexual maturity. In M. merluccius, the metal concentration increased sharply after 40 cm of length, probably due to a reduction in growth rate over this size. In P. longirostris no statistically significant difference between the slope of the linear regressions of males and that of females was found. In Eledone cirrhosa nomercury accumulation difference between the two sexeswas found. The metal concentration was generally highin all the studied species, with a maximum of 4.2 μg g-1 of fresh weight in N. norvegicus. |
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