title: Arsenic concentration and speciation of the marine hyperaccumulator whelk Buccinum undatum collected in coastal waters of Northern Britain.
abstract: European whelks (Buccinum undatum) have shown to accumulate high levels of arsenic. Since the accumulation process is not well understood it is necessary to gain information about the geographical variability of the arsenic concentration in them. Here we show that the mean arsenic concentrations of the whelks are site specific and vary by a factor of 3.5 in ten different geographical locations. At fishing grounds where whelks exhibited low arsenic concentrations the arsenic concentration increased linearly with size, whereas the whelks with high arsenic levels from a different location showed no correlation. Although the overall arsenic concentration in the whelks differed between 45 and 655 mg kg(-1) d.w., the inorganic arsenic concentration did not exceed 0.4 mg kg(-1) d.w. The main arsenic compound is arsenobetaine, which is widely considered as non-toxic. The exposure to toxic inorganic arsenic when eating whelks cannot be estimated from their size or their total arsenic concentration.
authors.affiliation: Trace Element Speciation Laboratory and Marine Biodiscovery Centre, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3UE, Scotland, UK.
authors.forename: Dagmar S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Urgast
authors.forename: Gillian C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Raab
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feldmann
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001151:Arsenic / Q000032:analysis*; D001152:Arsenicals / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D049851:Gastropoda / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D012606:Scotland
chemical_list: D001152:Arsenicals; D001151:Arsenic; C038992:arsenobetaine