International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.21, 1-5
1
Research Report Open Access
Potential risk of some heavy metals in
Pampus chinensis
(Euphrasen) Chinese
silver pomfret Stromateidae collected from Karachi Fish Harbour, Pakistan
Quratulan Ahmed
1
, Levent Bat
2
1. The Marine Reference Collection and Resources Centre, University of Karachi, Karachi, 75270 Pakistan
2. University of Sinop, Fisheries Faculty, Department of Hydrobiology, TR57000 Sinop, Turkey
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2015, Vol.5, No.21 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2015.05.0021
Received: 11 Jan., 2015
Accepted: 28 Feb., 2015
Published: 25 Mar., 2015
Copyright
©
2015
Ahmed and Bat, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Ahmed and Bat, 2015, Potential risk of some heavy metals in
Pampus chinensis
(Euphrasen) Chinese silver pomfret Stromateidae collected from Karachi Fish
Harbour, Pakistan, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.5, No.21 1
-
5 (doi
Abstract
Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn and Pb levels were studied in muscle and liver tissues of
Pampus chinensis
from Karachi Harbour as
is the most important fishery area in Pakistan to estimate the potential risk of human consumption. The fish samples were collected
monthly from Karachi fishing ports during January-December 2013. Significant differences in metal concentrations were found
between different months (P<0.05). Results showed that order of decreasing concentrations was Fe> Zn>Cu>Pb in tissues. The liver
metal concentrations showed the highest values, whereas the muscle concentrations were the lowest one. The mean (±SE)
concentrations of Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn and Pb in the muscles were 0.95±0.08, 29.32±2.04, 0.13±0.02, 2.28±0.12, 4.00±0.20 and
0.36±0.03 mg/kg; dry wt, respectively. The mean (±SE) liver concentrations of Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn and Pb were 3.08±0.27,
414.30±18.07, 0.85±0.06, 32.75±1.67, 43.24±2.61
and 0.77±0.07 mg/kg; dry wt, respectively. None of the metals exceed the
threshold limits for fish imposed by European Commission Regulation and other international organizations. This study also
demonstrated that estimated daily intakes of selected metals via consumption of fish were below the Permissible Tolerable Daily
Intake values established by FAO/WHO.
Keywords
Heavy metals;
Pampus chinensis
; Karachi Fish Harbour; Pakistan; Permissible Tolerable Daily Intake
Introduction
Marine pollution is growing at a danger level and has
become an important global problem. One of the most
important pollutants is heavy metals. Their levels in
coastal waters from both natural and anthropogenic
sources have impacted on the ecosystem health and
economic status of populations. Heavy metal
contaminations may also affect the ecological balance
of the receiving environment and the diversity of
aquatic organisms (Farombi et al., 2007). Heavy
metals consist of both biological essential and
non-biological essential metals are known to be
potentially toxic living organism (Bryan, 1976). An
increase in the levels of available heavy metals in the
coastal ecosystems may result in an increase in the
levels of metal taken up and thus accumulated by
organisms (Phillips and Rainbow, 1994; Rainbow,
1995). Fish are widely used to evaluate the health of
marine ecosystems because heavy metals transfer via
food chains and they are responsible to accumulate in
liver and even in edible tissues of fish (Bat, 2014).
This can lead to deleterious effects on fisheries and
potentially public health.
Karachi Harbour is the most important fishing area in
Pakistan (Siyal et al., 2013). In addition, of the
numerous industrial, sewage and agricultural wastes
reach the Karachi coastal area through some rivers
that are heavily polluted in several places. The
dumping of wastes in the coast provides a significant
source of heavy metal input (Khattak et al., 2012;
Mukhtar and Hannan, 2012; Ahmed et al., 2015). As
fish is an important and high protein source of food
for people all over the world (Pawar and Sonawane,
2013), this in itself imposes a need for detailed
investigation of metal pollution and control of their
levels (Patin, 1982).
P. chinensis
is carnivour fish (Last,
1997) and plays important role in food chains. Chinese
silver pomfret are consumed in fresh (Last, 1997).
The aims of this study were to: 1) Measure Mn, Fe,
Co, Cu, Zn and Pb in
P. chinensis
collected from
Karachi coastal waters monthly during 2013, 2)
