THESIS APPROVAL
THESIS APPROVAL
THESIS APPROVAL
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process that xenobiotics are taken into the body of organisms is through consumption<br />
of food containing the chemicals. The molecules can apparently be absorbed in the<br />
intestine and lipophilic organics in food are expected to transfer (Guthrie, 1980).<br />
The bioaccumulation potential of a chemical compound is greatly affected by<br />
the rate of elimination from the organism. If an unaltered chemical can be eliminated<br />
rapidly, residues will not accumulate and tissue damage is less likely.<br />
In invertebrates, elimination can proceed by several routes, including transport across<br />
the integument or resperatory surfaces, secretion in gallbladder bile, and excretion<br />
from the kidney in urine (Spacie and Hamelink, 1985). Furthermore, passive<br />
elimination of lipid-soluble chemicals can also occur across the skin and gills (Hunn<br />
and Allen, 1974; Allen and Hunn, 1977).<br />
The choice of the model to calculate the uptake of contaminants by an<br />
organism depends on the pollution sources organisms exposed to and has to be<br />
adapted to the case encountered. If the pollution is dissolved in the water,<br />
bioconcentration factors (BCF), calculating the uptake of contaminants from the<br />
water, must be used. If the pollution is located in the sediment, biota accumulation<br />
factors (BAFs), determining the uptake of contaminants from the sediment can be<br />
used. The BCF is the ratio of the concentration of test chemical accumulated in the<br />
tissues of the test organism to the measured concentration in the water to which the<br />
organisms are exposed, while BAFs are the concentration of a chemical accumulated<br />
by an organism divided by the concentration of the same chemical in sediment<br />
(Spacie and Hamelink, 1985). In sediment toxicity studies, the design was altered to<br />
determine the biota-sediment accumulation factors (BSAFs) calculated by dividing<br />
the lipid-normalized tissue concentrations by the organic-carbon normalized sediment<br />
concentration (Lee, 1992; Kemble et al., 1998). BSAFs were compared with the<br />
theoretical values of 1.7 predicted for equilibrium partitioning of hydrophobic organic<br />
contaminants in sediment-benthos systems (McFarland and Clarke, 1986; DiToro<br />
et al., 1991). A BSAF of less than 1.7 indicates less partitioning onto lipids than<br />
predicted and a value greater than 1.7 indicates more uptake than can be explained by<br />
partitioning theory alone (Lee, 1992). For non-metabolizing chemicals, a BSAF in the<br />
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