Relationship between Shell Length of Blue Mussels and Levels of Residual PCBs within the Body

Abstract

The effect of growth of blue mussels on residual concentration of compounds apt to accumulate in marine products was examined. Shells from 3cm to 8cm long were sampled and the residual concentrations of a representative compound, PCB, in the peeled shellfish were determined. The PCB level on a wet basis in 8cm shell (15.0ppb on the average) was 1.7 times that in 3cm shell (9.0ppb on the average); the correlation between the shell length and the PCB concentration in the peeled shellfish was significant (r=0.78, P<0.001, N=34). Moreover, the correlation between the weight of stripped shellfish and the PCB level, and that between the weight of peeled shellfish and the length of shell were both significant (r=0.77, P<0.001; r=0.96, P<0.001; respectively).These results may also be relevant to pollutants such as DDT, BHC analogs or organochlorine chemicals, which, like PCB, have large bioaccumulation factors between blue mussels and ambient seawater.