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Science 13 July 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5835, pp. 236 - 239
DOI: 10.1126/science.1138275
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Reports

Food Web–Specific Biomagnification of Persistent Organic Pollutants

Barry C. Kelly,1 Michael G. Ikonomou,2 Joel D. Blair,1 Anne E. Morin,1 Frank A. P. C. Gobas1*

Substances that accumulate to hazardous levels in living organisms pose environmental and human-health risks, which governments seek to reduce or eliminate. Regulatory authorities identify bioaccumulative substances as hydrophobic, fat-soluble chemicals having high octanol-water partition coefficients (KOW)(≥100,000). Here we show that poorly metabolizable, moderately hydrophobic substances with a KOW between 100 and 100,000, which do not biomagnify (that is, increase in chemical concentration in organisms with increasing trophic level) in aquatic food webs, can biomagnify to a high degree in food webs containing air-breathing animals (including humans) because of their high octanol-air partition coefficient (KOA) and corresponding low rate of respiratory elimination to air. These low KOW–high KOA chemicals, representing a third of organic chemicals in commercial use, constitute an unidentified class of potentially bioaccumulative substances that require regulatory assessment to prevent possible ecosystem and human-health consequences.

1 School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada.
2 Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Institute of Ocean Sciences, Ocean Sciences Division, 9860 West Saanich Road, Sidney, British Columbia, V8L 4B2, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gobas{at}sfu.ca

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)