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Food Chain Bioaccumulation

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Position in Food chain. Another significant determinant of bioaccumulation if the position that an organism dwell in a food. Any variation of the food chain that improved the number of trophic levels was anticipated to increase bioaccumulation in top carnivores due to biomagnification happening at the respective step. Even though the position in the food chain is evidently significant to bioaccumulation, its effect is not continuously upfront for the reason that there is no continual rise in contaminant loads as one come up trophic levels in a food chain (Suedel et al., 1994). Certainly, it is not infrequent to find the maximum intensities of concentrations of contaminants at intermediary or even at lower trophic levels that is dependent on …show more content…
Temperature is a fundamental ecological variable identified to affect bioaccumulation. A variety of studies showed that alterations in environmental temperature can considerably alter bioaccumulation, even though the impact of temperature on bioaccumulation is not always stable. Mechanistically, the effect of temperature on bioaccumulation could be specialized to physical or biological factors or to the relationship of the two. Indeed, some researchers established that temperature-induced variations in bioaccumulation were possibly due to alterations in biological influences rather than physical ones. Temperature has numerous influences on the physiology and behavior of aquatic organisms that that has the capacity of potentially affecting exposure intensities and bioaccumulation. The oxygen demand on an organism increases as the temperature increases as well. Most aquatic biota respond by increasing the respiration rate to satisfy increased oxygen demand. Additional water must be dispensed over the gills or respiratory surface to acquire more oxygen as temperature rises. Exposure to contaminants would be better as temperature rises if that water comprises a contaminant load. Hence, the net result of increasing temperature on steady-state concentrations of contaminants could be reduced (Bruner et al., …show more content…
Time is an essential element in defining intensities of bioaccumulation, specifically when the contaminant source is not water. For example, time is vital together from a physical and biological position when the source of contamination is sediment. The contaminant partitioning to sediment involves of two periods, the first of which is comparatively fast and the second of which is relatively slow and since contaminants that sorb to the nonlabile portion are basically inaccessible, the contaminants bioavailability in sediment will alter as a function of time as the labile portion of contaminant go into the pool of nonlabile. This occurrence may be measured in sediment by means of a disappearance variable, such as A, which is the rate persistent for the contaminant to go into the compartment of nonlabile and become inaccessible. Therefore, uptake of contaminants from an old sediment must be lesser than uptake from a young sediment in which labile sorption prevails. It is possible that the feeding mechanism of the organism eliminates chemical from the labile portion, reducing the sediment of the greatest bioavailable pool. This was confirmed by the outcome that when an experimental sediment was exposed to three consecutive groups of Diporeia spp., the uptake allowance rate for phenanthrene was decreased by 60% (Landrum,

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