useful. Aromatic hydrocarbons, which are a 

 biogenic rarity yet often a major component of 

 petroleum and its refined products found to be 

 rapidly taken up by marine organisms, may be 

 rapidly lost from contaminated organisms (Lee, 

 Sauerheber and Dobbs 1972; Stegeman and Teal 

 1973; Anderson 1973). Consequently, the utility of 

 these compounds in marine pollution monitoring 

 programs and in long-term bioassay experiments 

 may be somewhat limited. 



We previously reported (Clark and Finley 

 1973b) uptake by mussels, M. edulis and M. 

 califarnianus, of petroleum n-paraffins following 

 oil spills in the marine environment. A No. 2 fuel 

 oil spill resulted in considerably greater uptake (10 

 ppm. of n-Ci-j) than for mussels exposed to Navy 

 Special fuel oil residue (nearly 1 ppm. of n.-C^-j); 

 however, in both cases it was obvious that the ap- 

 parently healthy mussels had acquired an n- 

 paraffin hydrocarbon pattern like that of the 

 pollutant. By creating an oil slick and a tidal sys- 

 tem within an aquarium under laboratory condi- 

 tions, it is possible to show that these earlier 

 findings can be reproduced. These results add 

 further support to the data of other investigators 

 who used different approaches and analytical 

 techniques. 



We did not analyze hydrocarbon levels in 

 specific organs, conduct metabolic studies, or de- 

 termine aromatic content. Stegeman and Teal 

 (1973) and Anderson (1973) found that aromatic 

 hydrocarbons were often enriched in oysters in 

 preference to the n-paraffins. 



While we have given percentage loss of pollu- 

 tant paraffin hydrocarbons in our presentation as 

 well as actual concentration levels (Figure 7), the 

 percentage value is very dependent on both the 

 level of initial pollution exposure and on the lower 

 limit of sensitivity of the experimental method for 

 detecting pollutant uptake near biogenic 

 background concentrations in marine organisms. 

 Thus, one might have two sets of organisms 

 showing similar concentrations of residual pollu- 

 tant after considerable depuration but with a 

 dramatically different percentage loss as a result 

 of different exposure levels. 



The variation of uptake and loss of petroleum 

 hydrocarbons in marine organisms most certainly 

 is related to the magnitude of the exposure-the 

 amount of the pollutant and the duration, as well 

 as physical and chemical properties of the pollu- 

 tant. 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 73, NO. 3 



LITERATURE CITED 



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514 



