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Assessment of heavy metal pollution in Laizhou Bay (China) using the ecological risk index and the integrated biomarker response of the goby Acanthogobius ommaturus

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Abstract

We used the Integrated Biological Responses version 2 (IBRv2) method to evaluate the biological effects of heavy metals in the sediments in Laizhou Bay, China on the benthic goby Acanthogobius ommaturus. In December 2018, gobies and sediments were collected from 15 stations. We measured the activities of defense enzymes and the contents of malondialdehyde (MDA) and metallothionein (MT) in the goby liver as well as the levels of heavy metals in the sediments and goby muscle tissue. Most of the heavy metal concentrations in sediment at each station were below the Class I criteria set by Chinese Standards for Marine Sediment Quality, and the Håkanson ecological risk index suggested low risk for the heavy metals. We found that A. ommaturus could effectively accumulate mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and zinc and that the contents of MT and MDA and the activities of glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase were suitable biomarkers of heavy metal pollution in this species. The IBRv2 method integrated these four biomarkers and discriminated stations according to heavy metal pollution. Higher IBRv2 values suggested more adverse effects in gobies, corroborating more serious heavy metal contamination. The stations with high IBRv2 values and high contents of heavy metals were mainly distributed in the west and northeast parts of the bay. These results show that the IBRv2 approach is a feasible strategy for assessing heavy metal pollution through biological response and biological status and that it can be implemented for environmental monitoring in Laizhou Bay.

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Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request

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  1. Maosheng LIU and Hua XU contributed equally to this work and should be regarded as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agriculture, Ludong University, Yantai, 264025, China

    Maosheng Liu, Fei Fang, Yonghui Bo, Lei Yao & Yan Fang

  2. Yantai Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, Yantai, 264010, China

    Hua Xu

  3. Yantai Branch of Shandong Technology Transfer Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, 264003, China

    Qiang Zou

  4. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Restoration for Marine Ecology, Shandong Marine Resource and Environment Research Institute, Yantai, 264006, China

    Shan Sun, Yuting Zhao & Xin He

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Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFD0900704), the Yantai Key Research and Development Program (No. 2019XDHZ097), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42076137), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2020QD003), and the Shandong Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, YICCAS (No. 2019SDHADKFJJ16)

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Assessment of heavy metal pollution in Laizhou Bay (China) using the ecological risk index and the integrated biomarker response of the goby Acanthogobius ommaturus

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Liu, M., Xu, H., Zou, Q. et al. Assessment of heavy metal pollution in Laizhou Bay (China) using the ecological risk index and the integrated biomarker response of the goby Acanthogobius ommaturus. J. Ocean. Limnol. 41, 1519–1536 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-022-1387-8

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