Total mercury in muscle of benthic and pelagic fish from the South Adriatic Sea (Italy)

Total mercury concentrations were measured from the muscle of different kin ds of fish: yellow gurnard (Trigla lucerna), red gurnard (Aspitrigla cuculu s) red fish (Helicolenus dactylopterus), skate spp. (Raje spp.), goldline ( Sarpa salpa), atlantic bonito (Sarda sarda), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), c hub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) caught in the South Adriatic Sea (south It aly) in the period June/August 1995. The highest total mercury levels were found in the benthic marine organisms and particularly in skates (Raje spp. ) whose values ranged from 0.05 to 2.65 mg/kg wet wt with a mean value of 1 .02 mg/kg wet wt. As for pelagic species, the highest mean levels were obse rved in Atlantic bonito (0.34 mg/kg wet wt), while in goldline the mean con tent of total mercury was the lowest (0.07 mg/kg wet wt). According to the rules in force (Official Journal of the European Communities 1994) 53% of s kate and Atlantic bonito samples showed concentrations exceeding the peak v alue of 1 mg/kg, while for the other species, only 28% of samples exceeded the peak value fixed at 0.5 mg/kg. Correlations between total mercury conce ntration and specimen weight were evident in all examined species except fo r goldline and skates.