International Journal of Marine Science 2015, Vol.5, No.25, 1-9
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concentrations in water, as well as exposure period.
Metals, including both essential and nonessential
elements have a particular significance in
ecotoxicology, since they are highly persistent and all
have the potential to be toxic to living organisms
(Ebrahimpour & Mushrifah, 2009).
The consequence of heavy metal pollution can be
hazardous to man and it often becomes mandatory to
check chemical contaminants in foods from the
aquatic environment to understand their hazard
levels. These studies are largely based on
accumulation of higher levels of heavy metals in
different tissues such as liver, gills and muscle. Gill
has a tendency to accumulate metals to higher
degree than muscle tissue, which usually exhibits a
low accumulation potential of metals. Muscle was
chosen in the present study for determining the
metal concentration because it is the part consumed
because of its direct contact with the surrounding
water. Although fish skin is also consumed, only
little research has been carried out on the residues
of metals in fish skin (Storelli et al., 2006).
In the present study, the food fishes analysed are
having low economic importance. Even though, there
is much more industrial activity in Cuddalore than
Pazhayar, both areas were selected to compare and
determine the levels of trace metals viz. cadmium
(Cd), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), magnesium
(Mg), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), zinc
(Zn), aluminum (Al), chromium (Cr) and boron (B) in
the body organs of seven fin fishes from each station,
in order to evaluate their hazard level in relation to the
maximum residual limit for human consumption.
Materials and Methods
Study area
Cuddalore landing center
Cuddalore fish landing center (lat. 11°76’N; long.
79°74’E) is one of the major fish landing center in
Tamilnadu southeast coast of India that hosts a
number of large-scale industries (Figure 1). The
Uppanar river runs parallel to the southeast coast of
Cuddalore and a number of small streams of domestic,
treated and untreated effluents from industries
connected the coast via the river.
Figure 1 Map showing the sampling locations at Cuddalore and Pazhayar, Bay of Bengal, India
