| Abstract
| - We investigated the bioavailability via diet of spikedbenzo[a]pyrene (BaP) and 2,2‘,5,5‘-tetrachlorobiphenyl (PCB-52) from different carbonaceous (non-carbonate, carboncontaining) particle types to clams (Macoma balthica)collected from San Francisco Bay. Our results revealsignificant differences in absorption efficiency betweencompounds and among carbonaceous particle types.Absorption efficiency for PCB-52 was always greater thanthat for BaP bound to a given particle type. Amongparticles, absorption efficiency was highest from woodand diatoms and lowest from activated carbon. Largedifferences in absorption efficiency could not be simplyexplained by comparatively small differences in the particles'total organic carbon content. BaP and PCB-52 bound toactivated carbon exhibited less than 2% absorption efficiencyand were up to 60 times less available to clams than thesame contaminants associated with other types ofcarbonaceous matter. These results suggest that variationsin the amount and type of sediment particulate carbonaceousmatter, whether naturally occurring or added as anamendment, will have a strong influence on the bioavailabilityof hydrophobic organic contaminants. This has importantimplications for environmental risk assessment, sedimentmanagement, and development of novel remediationtechniques.
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