TOXICOKINETICS AND TOXICITY OF A MIXTURE OF SEDIMENT-ASSOCIATED POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS TO THE AMPHIPOD DIPOREIA SP

Amphipods, Diporeia sp., were exposed to a reference sediment dosed with two radio-labeled polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and sediments dosed with a mixture of PAHs at four concentrations: 21.4, 41.0, 119.6, and 327.0 nmol g-1 dry sediment, as the molar sum of the PAH congeners. Diporeia sp. were sampled for mortality and toxicokinetics for up to 26 d. Significant sediment avoidance was observed at the highest dose out to 6 d of exposure. The toxicity for the mixture was 38 +/- 3% after 19 d of exposure at the highest dose, 327 nmol g-1 dry sediment as the molar sum of the PAHs. The measured organism concentration required to produce the mortality at day 19 was 2.9-mu-mol g-1 as the sum of the bioaccumulated PAHs. The uptake clearance (g dry sediment g-1 organism h-1) from sediments for the radiotracers increased with dose to an apparent plateau. Uptake clearance is the conditional constant relating the contaminant flux into the organism to the contaminant concentration in the referenced environmental compartment, in this case the sediment. This enhanced bioavailability with dose occurred even in the absence of overt effects and in the absence of changes in the measured partition coefficients for phenanthrene (273 +/- 98) and pyrene (540 +/- 212), between the freely dissolved radiotracers in interstitial water and the sediment particles. These changes in bioavailability with changes in PAH concentration suggest that predictions of bioaccumulation of PAH congeners from sediments under different field concentration conditions will not be possible with standard partitioning relationships.