Heavy metal pollution in marine fish has become an important worldwide concern, not only because of the threat to fish in general, but also due to human health risks associated with fish consumption. To investigate the occurrence of heavy metals in marine fish species from the South China Sea, 14 fish species were collected along the coastline of Hainan China during the spring of 2012 and examined for species- and tissue-specific accumulation. The median concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn, Pb and As in muscle tissue of the examined fish species were not detectable (ND), 2.02, 0.24, 2.64, 0.025, and 1.13 mg kg−1 wet weight, respectively. Levels of Cu, Zn, Cd and Cr were found to be higher in the liver and gills than in muscle, while Pb was preferentially accumulated in the gills. Differing from other heavy metals, As did not exhibit tissue-specific accumulation. Inter-species differences of heavy metal accumulation were attributed to the different habitat and diet characteristics of marine fish. Human dietary exposure assessment suggested that the amounts of both Cr and As in marine wild fish collected from the sites around Hainan, China were not compliant with the safety standard of less than 79.2 g d−1 for wild marine fish set by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. Further research to identify the explicit sources of Cr and As in marine fish from South China Sea should be established.
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This study was supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2012M510201), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41176090; 51378488), and Hundred Talents Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences to Dr. X.R. Xu. We also thank Dr. Chris C. Feng for his help in revising the manuscript.
Conflict of interestWe declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript entitled, “Heavy metals in wild marine fish from South China Sea: Levels, tissue- and species-specific accumulation and potential risk to humans”.
Author information Authors and AffiliationsKey Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China
Jin-Ling Liu, Xiang-Rong Xu & Jia-Xi Peng
College of the Environment & Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China
Zhen-Hua Ding & Ming-Hua Jin
State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, CAS, Guangzhou, 510301, China
You-Shao Wang, Yi-Guo Hong & Wei-Zhong Yue
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
Jia-Xi Peng
School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China
Jin-Ling Liu
Correspondence to Xiang-Rong Xu.
About this article Cite this articleLiu, JL., Xu, XR., Ding, ZH. et al. Heavy metals in wild marine fish from South China Sea: levels, tissue- and species-specific accumulation and potential risk to humans. Ecotoxicology 24, 1583–1592 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1451-7
Accepted: 21 March 2015
Published: 31 March 2015
Issue Date: October 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1451-7
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