Article Contamination of Sediments and Histological Alterations in Barfin Plaice

In August-September 2001, 15 samples of bottom sediments were collected in the inner, middle and open parts of Amursky Bay near Vladivostok, Russia, and barfin plaice Pleuronectes pinnifasciatus was sampled from the inner and the middle locations of the bay. In the sediments from all three sites, ele-vated concentrations of several heavy metals, i.e. Zn (102-115 µg/g dry weight), Ni (70-73 µg/g), and Cu (27-35 µg/g) were discovered. The contents of oil hydrocarbons were very close to or slightly higher than the maximal normal environmental background level, 100 µg/g dry weight. The sediments contained neg-ligible amounts of hexachlorocyclohexane, while DDT concentrations were quite high (1.7-16.3 ng/g dry weight). Generally, there were no substantial differences in the pollution levels of the locations studied, and our results resembled those reported for Amursky Bay in the 1990s. Surprisingly, in 2001 “fresh ” DDT comprised 70-85 % of the total DDT content in sediment from all the locations studied. In fish liver, total DDTs concentrations were 212.8 and 122.54 ng/g wet weight for the inner and the middle locations, respectively, and “fresh ” DDT comprised 35 and 64 % of DDTs, respectively. These results provide evi-dence of recent input of DDT from an unknown source into the ecosystem of Amursky Bay. Histopatho-logical changes revealed in the plaice liver (vacuolization of hepatocytes, coagulative necrosis o