ENSC 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Bioconcentration, Bioaccumulation, Biomagnification
17 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
Bioaccumulation is combination of two factors: bioconcentration refers to partition of compounds into biological tissue or organism. Partition equilibrium between water and second non-polar phase. Related to hydrophobicity" or lipophilicity" of contaminant. Modeled by chemical partition constant between octanol and water: biomagnification refers to amplification of concentration in an organism if it consumes contaminated organisms. Assume almost all contaminant in the prey organism is retained by the predator organism linked to persistence. Using log kow convenient as values are available for many compounds: correlated with solubility, but not identical. Higher log kow generally means less soluble, but not always. The words should not be used interchangeably. Case study for dd use in western us. Ddd relatively non-toxic: but persistence and bioaccumulation results in sustained ppb in water being toxic up food chain, first time impact of bioaccumulation was systematically noted.
