Chlorinated cyclodiene pesticide residues in blue mussel, crab, and fish in the Gulf of Gdansk, Baltic Sea

Chlordane components (CHLs) and their metabolites (heptachlor, cis-heptachl or epoxide, U82, MC4, transchlordane, MC5, cis-chlordane, MC7, oxychlordane , MC6- and trans- and cis-nonachlor) and aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, isodrin, endosulfan 1,endosulfan 2,and mirex were quantified in the soft tissues of blue mussel, a whole crab, and whole fishes collected from the spatially di fferent sites in the Gulf of Gdansk. Six to twelve chlordane compounds and metabolites and dieldrin were detected in all organisms examined while aldr in, endrin, isodrin, endosulfans 1 and 2, and mirex were not found above th e detection limit of the method. The lipid weight based concentrations in B altic biota were relatively small and ranged from 12 to 150 and 7.6-77 ng/g , while between 0.16 and 6.8 and 0.10-6.6 ng/g in fresh tissue, respectivel y. The profile (%) of chlordane compounds was very similar between various fish species with trans-nonachlor (28 +/- 17), cis-chlordane (23 +/- 18), o xychlordane (13 +/- 7), and heptachlor epoxide (11 +/- 5) as major constitu ents and was totally different in crab with oxychlordne as the most dominat ing (> 65%) compound. Blue mussel, lamprey, and three-spined stickleback ex hibited a smallest ability to metabolize CHLs, and such fishes as cod, less er sand-eel, sand-eel, pikeperch, perch, round goby, flounder, and herring showed a slightly better ability, while crab was able to effectively metabo lize most of CHL compounds except trans-nonachlor. A value of the quotient of the trans-nonachlor to cis-chlordane concentrations (N/C quotient) was 1 .0 in blue mussel, 3.1 in crab, and between 0.9 and 1.8 in fish. Both the s mall concentrations of CHLs in all organisms and the values of N/C quotient s close to I imply on a long-range aerial transport through movement of the air masses from the remote regions of the northern hemisphere as a main so urce of this pesticide in the Gulf of Gdansk. The interdependences between the CHL profiles for various fish species and between different sampling si tes were examined using the principal component analysis (PCA) method. Appl ying the PCA model the first four significant components explained 90% (43% + 23% + 15% + 8%) of the total variance in the data matrix.