Organochlorine contaminants in the Northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis, collected from the Northwest Atlantic

Northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis, were sampled at two commercially important locations in the Northwest Atlantic and soft tissues analysed for a variety of organo-chlorine pollutants. Sampling facilitated examination of the environmental and experimental variability to determine if and how location, season, sex or size affects results. Organochlorine compounds including polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenbenzofurans were non-detectable in muscle tissue (DLs = 0.01 − 0.5 ng/g and 0.1 − 0.5 pg/g, for the two groups, wet weight). Concentrations were highest in hepatopancreas, the tissue with a higher lipid content (mean = 28% vs 0.27% in muscle. The larger variation in the tissue distribution of contaminants was observed in April versus November females. Higher concentrations were observed in November eggs and in hepatopancreas of females sampled in April. The present study indicates the presence of a larger number of PCB and PCDF congeners in the hepatopancreas of shrimp, a lower link in the Northwest Atlantic food chain, as compared to livers of previously studied finfish species.