Kinetics of hydrophobic organic compounds uptake in the earthworm Eisenia andrei in soils with different content of organic carbon

This thesis is concerned with the fate of hydrophobic organic pollutants (HOCs) in soil. The theoretical part summarizes the current knowledge about bioavailability, factors influencing the bioavailability and methods for its measurement. Attention is paid to the organic carbon content, which is considered to be one of the key factors and to the influence of microorganisms that can degrade or interact with the substances, thus changing their bioavailable ratio. The practical part of the thesis uses bioaccumulation test with earthworm Eisenia andrei for evaluating the uptake kinetics HOCs in three soils with different organic carbon content. Soils were laboratory contaminated with mixtures of selected HOCs (phenanthrene, pyrene, lindane, p,p'-DDT and PCB 153) and the concentrations of substances in these soils were followed for 217 days. Subsequently, bioaccumulation test was conducted; earthworms were exposed from one to twenty-one days. The collected data were used to model uptake kinetics curves for individual substances. Peak-shaped bioaccumulation were found for pyrene, for lindane a steady-state concentration during exposure was observed, whereas for p,p'-DDT and PCB 153 growing concentrations after twenty days of exposure were detected. The reason for the different behavior of the substances was probably their diverse sorption on the organic material, which together with the different speed of elimination influenced final concentration in earthworms. Phenanthrene was not detected in some samples and therefore the modeling of uptake kinetics was not possible