Organochlorine compounds in subtropical and tropical marine organisms: a meta-analysis

A search of the published and unpublished literature was conducted for analytical data on organochlorine compounds in tissues of subtropical and tropical marine organisms. The search was limited to reports of analyte concentrations in whole body or muscle tissue that were minimally determined by chromatographic procedures. A total of 1564 sample analyses consisting of 4431 analyte determinations were obtained for hard and soft corals, sponges, benthic seagrasses and algae, gastropods, fish and shellfish, and `market-basket' (processed seafood) samples. For comparative purposes, data that were reported on a wet-or fresh-weight basis were uniformly converted to a common dry-weight estimate by dividing the wet-weight values by five (i.e., 80% water, 20% dry-weight tissue). Due to the large variation in analytical procedures, target analytes, chromatographic interpretations, and reporting units, the data were pooled by organochlorine-compound class (i.e., chlorinated cyclodienes, chlorinated aliphatics, chlorinated phenols, and chlorinated terpenes, hexachlorocyclohexanes, and polychlorinated biphenyls). A meta-analysis of the resulting database yielded a mean analyte concentration of 1594 ± 8768 ng g⁻¹ (dry weight), a median concentration of 23 ng g⁻¹ (dry weight), and a mean of 2.89 analytes per sample; the corresponding mean tissue burden is 4608 ng g⁻¹ (dry weight), the equivalent of 922 ng g⁻¹ on a wet-weight basis. It was also found that the chlorinated aliphatics (i.e., DDT and its metabolites) constituted 40.15% of the reported analyte determinations.