Analysis of biomagnification profiles of environmental chemicals in the shallow water ecosystems based on the nitrogen stable isotope ratio

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The present study elucidated the biomagnification profiles of oroganotins, organochrolines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and alchylphenols through coastal food web based on trophic characterization using stable nitrogen ratio analysis (δ^<15>N). While tributyltin (TBT), one of the representative organotins, showed no significant biomagnification through the coastal food web (expressed by δ^<15>N), significant biomagnification of triphenyltin (TPT) was found. Most of organochlorines, i.e., dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and its metabolites (DDTs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlordane compounds (CHLs) and tris-4-chlorophenyl methane (TCPMe) showed the significant positive increases with increases of δ^<15>N. However, unlike these organochlorines, most of isomers of PAHs and nonylphenols and octylphenol, both which are alkylphenols, showed the significant decrease with increases of δ^<15>N. The present study shows that, unlike organochlorines, organotins except for TPT, PAHs and alkylphenols showed no significant biomagnification through the coastal food web. A comparison of our results with previous data on the log transformed octanol-water partition coefficient (log Kow) indicates that a value of 5.5 (log Kow) represents a threshhold coefficient for biomagnification or not through the coastal food web. This means that organisms situated at lower trophic levels of the food web accumulate more of these anthropogenic chemicals than organisms situated at the higher trophic level.