Trace metals in ribbed mussels from Arthur Kill, New York/New Jersey, USA

摘要

Mussels are routinely analyzed in marine environ-mental monitoring programs because of their tendency to accumulate contaminants. These programs primarily measure the blue mussel species, Mytilus edulis, because of its global distribution (Cantillo, 1997). However, blue mussels are often absent under extreme environmental conditions, such as high temperatures. The mortality of blue mussels can also be high in polluted sediments (Nelson et al., 1995). The ribbed mussel, Geukensia demissa (formerly, Modiolus demissus and Dillwyn), is often the only mussel present in the intertidal regions of some tidal marshes possibly because of its tolerance for extremes of temperature and salinity (Bertness, 1980; Franz, 1997). Such was the case in our study of the impacts of a 1990 fuel oil spill in the Arthur Kill (New Jersey/New York, USA) where only ribbed mussels were found consistently. Mussels were collected in 1996 and 1997 from two sites that had been inundated with oil and had been replanted with Spartina alterniflora (Old Place Creek and Saw Mill North) and from two oiled sites that were not replanted (Consolidated Edison Tower and Saw Mill South) (Fig. 1). (Bergen et al., 2000). Mussels from two other Arthur Kill sites that had not been oiled by the 1990 fuel oil spill (Tufts Point and Mill Creek), but whose sediments contained high concentrations of metals, were also collected, as well as from one regional reference site (Sandy Hook, New Jersey) whose sediments contained low metal concentrations (Packer, 2001). Our data set of trace metal levels in ribbed mussels is more extensive than others found in the literature, and is reported here as a measure of the utility of using ribbed mussels as an environmental monitoring tool in environments where blue mussels are absent.