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LEVELS AND PROFILES OF PCBs AND PBDEs IN HARBOUR SEAL AND HARBOUR PORPOISE FROM THE SOUTHERN NORTH SEA
Liesbeth Weijs, Adriana Gheorghe, Alin C. Dirtu, Krishna Das, P.J.H. Reijnders, Hugo Neels, Ronny Blust, Adrian Covaci
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Abstract
Harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and harbour seals (Phoca vitulina), two representative top-predator species for the North Sea ecosystem, are good indicators of coastal pollution. Concentrations of sum PCBs were 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than concentrations of sum PBDEs and covered a large range of concentrations (up to 210 μg/g lw and 5.9 μg/g lw for sum PCBs and sum PBDEs). A higher contribution of lower chlorinated congeners and non-persistent congeners, such as CB 52, CB 95, CB 101, CB 118 and CB 149 indicated that harbour porpoises are unable to metabolize these congeners. Similar to PCBs, a higher contribution of other PBDE congeners than BDE 47 was observed in harbour porpoises, suggesting that porpoises have more difficulties to metabolize these congeners. This is also supported by the higher concentrations of sum PBDEs in porpoises. In contrast, harbour seals show a higher ability to metabolize (non-persistent) PCBs.