PESTICIDE BIOACCUMULATION IN CATTLE

A simple partition model was developed to evaluate the bioaccumulation of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides (dieldrin and heptachlor) in th e soil-pasture-grazing animal system. Biomagnification factors (BFL) c alculated on a lipid basis ranged from 0.115 to 0.175, but could not b e directly compared with other values from the literature because of d ifferent methods of calculation. The partition model predicted values of somewhat less than unity, indicating that it does not fully account for pesticide pathways and mechanisms. However, the lack of variation of these values from two compounds indicates a lack of dependence on the octanol/water coefficient which is in accord with the model. The r esults suggest partitioning between food in the stomach and body tissu es is a major bioaccumulation process but other major processes are al so involved. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.