Influence of trophic status on PCB distribution in lake sediments and biota
Author
Summary, in English
We investigated the relationship between trophic status and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) distribution in 19 Swedish lakes. We analyzed PCB in water, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and sediment during two sampling periods, in spring and summer. The mass of Sigma PCB in the lake sediments was positively related to lake trophy, i.e. more PCBs were accumulated and buried in the sediment of eutrophic lakes than in oligotrophic lakes. In the oligotrophic lakes a greater fraction of the total PCB load was dissolved in water. We conclude that this is a result of higher sedimentation rates in eutrophic lakes and relatively lower turnover of organic carbon in the water column of the shallow, eutrophic lakes. In the stratified lakes, the amount of PCB per cubic meter in the epilimnion decreased from spring to summer. We suggest that sedimentation of plankton beneath the thermocline during stratification act as a sink process of PCBs from the epilimnion
Department/s
Publishing year
2001
Language
English
Pages
199-210
Publication/Series
Environmental Pollution
Volume
113
Issue
2
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Ecology
Status
Published
Research group
- Aquatic Ecology
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0269-7491