UPTAKE BY MARINE LIFE 



Petroleum can enter the marine food web by adsorption to particles, followed 

 by ingestion of the particles by filter feeding, by the active uptake of dissolved 

 or dispersed petroleum, and/or passage into the gut of animals that gulp or 

 drink water. The results of analyses of marine organisms exposed to oil spills 

 have demonstrated their ability to take up and store hydrocarbons without 

 necessarily indicating their mode of uptake (Ocean Affairs Board 1975). The 

 data showed highest levels in animals and plants exposed to a large oil spill, 

 with lower levels in areas of chronic pollution. Large amounts of tar were 

 found in the stomach of three sauries collected in the Mediterranean Sea (Horn 

 et al . 1970). Fishes caught in waters near petrochemical industries often 

 have a kerosene-like taint, which is probably due to the presence of volatile 

 aromatic hydrocarbons (Ogata and Miyake 1973). The uptake of dispersed oil 

 droplets by copepods after an oil spill and the elimination of these droplets 

 in fecal matter have been noted by Conover (1971). 



The benthic animals and plants from areas of high petroleum input generally 

 have petroleum concentrations in their tissues several orders of magnitude 

 higher than in the surrounding water. Because of their high lipid content, 

 the liver of marine fish and the hepatopancreas of crustaceans are sites of 

 hydrocarbon storage (Lee et al. 1972a, 1972b; Lee et al. 1976; Neff et al. 

 1976). The gallbladder in fish is also a temporary storage site, although 

 the organ apparently serves mainly as an avenue of discharge. The various 

 groups of petroleum hydrocarbons have different retention times so that oysters 

 from oil-contaminated waters accumulated aromatic hydrocarbons to a greater 

 extent than aliphatic hydrocarbons (Blumer et al. 1970). 



All vertebrates and some invertebrate systems that have been examined 

 have a so-called "detoxifying system," which facilitates elimination of lipid, 

 soluble foreign compounds from the organisms by addition of polar groups to 

 the hydrocarbon molecule, thus increasing its water solubility. Involved 

 are a series of enzymes that carry out hydroxylation and conjugation reactions. 

 Degradation of aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons occurs in marine fish, 

 crustaceans, and polychaeta worms (Lee et al. 1972a, 1976, 1977b; Corner et al. 

 1973). Oysters, clams, and mussels remove hydrocarbons from the water while 

 filtering large quantities of water, but these organisms lack the enzyme system 

 for metabolizing these compounds (Lee et al. 1972a). Because of this accumula- 

 tion of hydrocarbons by bivalves, it has been suggested that bivalves be used 

 to monitor ocean waters for petroleum pollution. 



FATE OF OIL IN SEDIMENTS 



Various sedimentation processes, such as adsorption to particles, carry 

 petroleum components of an oil slick to the bottom. Blumer and Sass (1972) 

 continued to find petroleum-derived hydrocarbons in sediments from Buzzards 

 Bay, Massachusetts, for many years after a spill of No. 2 fuel oil. Sewage 

 effluents and small oil spills were the sources of the high hydrocarbon con- 

 centrations in the sediments of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island (Farrington 

 and Quinn 1973). The observed biological degradation of hydrocarbons in the 

 sediments of these areas is due to microfauna, meiofauna, and macrofauna. 



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