Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2022 | 14(12): 22337–22340
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8167.14.12.22337-22340
#8167 | Received 29 August 2022 | Final
received 26 September 2022 | Finally accepted 09 November 2022
Mercury in tuna from the western
equatorial Atlantic Ocean and health risk assessment
Ana Paula Madeira Di Beneditto 1*, Inácio
Abreu Pestana 2*, Igor David da Costa
3, Marcelo Gomes de Almeida 4, Braulio Cherene
Vaz de Oliveira 5 & Carlos Eduardo de
Rezende 6
1,2,4,5,6 Universidade Estadual
do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, CBB, Laboratório de Ciências Ambientais, Av. Alberto Lamego
2000, Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, 28013-602, Brazil.
3 Universidade Federal Fluminense,
Instituto do Noroeste Fluminense
de Educação Superior, Av. João Jasbick,
s/nº, Santo Antônio de Pádua, RJ, 28470-000, Brazil.
* These authors contributed
equally to this work.
1 anadibeneditto@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 inacio@uenf.br, 3 igorbiologia@yahoo.com.br,
4 marcelogaa@yahoo.com.br, 5 brauliocherene@gmail.com, 6
crezende@uenf.br
Editor: Anonymity
requested. Date of
publication: 26 December 2022 (online & print)
Citation: Di Beneditto,
A.P.M., I.A. Pestana, I.D. da Costa, M.G de Almeida,
B.C.V. de Oliveira & C.E. de Rezende (2022). Mercury in tuna from the western
equatorial Atlantic Ocean and health risk assessment. Journal of Threatened Taxa 14(12): 22337–22340. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8167.14.12.22337-22340
Copyright: © Di Beneditto et al. 2022. Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the
author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: Conselho Nacional
de Desenvolvimento Científico
e Tecnológico (CNPq) (grants no. 302.598/2021-9 and
305.217/2017-8)Fundação Carlos Chagas
Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de
Janeiro (FAPERJ) (grants no. E-26/200.797/2021,
E-26/210.703/2021 and E-26/200.586/2022).
Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We are indebted to Felipe Miranda and Aline
Aquino for access to tuna specimens at Mercado Municipal Central Leste. This research was funded by Conselho
Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico
e Tecnológico (CNPq)
(grants no. 302.598/2021-9 and 305.217/2017-8) and Fundação
Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do
Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) (grants no. E-26/200.797/2021, E-26/210.703/2021 and
E-26/200.586/2022).
Abstract: This study
analyses the mercury (Hg) concentration in the meat of Thunnus
albacares and Thunnus
obesus caught from the western equatorial
Atlantic Ocean. The objective was to estimate the Hg intake via tuna ingestion
and presents the possible health risk assessment. For T. albacares
and T. obesus, the median concentration
was 212 ng·g-1 and 475.1 ng·g-1 wet weight, respectively.
The Hg concentrations were below the maximum tolerable limit established by
international and Brazilian regulations for fishery products. The consumption
would pose a risk for human populations that ingest more than 80 g·day-1.
Regular monitoring of both human consumption rates and Hg levels in fish are
recommended.
Keywords: Hg, human
health, Thunnus albacares,
Thunnus obesus.
Portuguese: Este estudo
analisa a concentração de mercúrio (Hg) na carne de Thunnus
albacares e T. obesus
capturados em pescarias no Oceano Atlântico equatorial ocidental, estima a
ingestão de Hg via ingestão de atum e apresenta a avaliação de risco à saúde.
Para T. albacares e T. obesus,
a mediana das concentrações foi 212 ng·g-1 e 475,1 ng·g-1
peso úmido, respectivamente. As concentrações de Hg ficaram abaixo do limite
máximo tolerável estabelecido pelas regulamentações internacionais e
brasileiras. O consumo representaria um risco para as populações humanas que
ingerem mais de 80 g·dia-1.
In Brazil, the tuna fishery
targeted mainly the yellowfin tuna T. albacares
Bonnaterre, 1788) and the bigeye tuna T. obesus (Lowe, 1839), which are among the main tuna
species caught worldwide (Guillotreau et al. 2017;
Rodrigues et al. 2020). Tuna species are large and long-lived predatory fishes
with wide distribution, becoming good bio monitors of contaminants, such as
mercury (Hg) (Ferriss & Essington 2011; Jinadasa
et al. 2019; Tseng et al. 2021). In the marine environment, >95% of the Hg
in the meat of predatory fish is methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin (Lescord et al. 2018). This study analyzes the Hg
concentration in tuna meat from western equatorial Atlantic Ocean, and
estimates the Hg intake via tuna ingestion.
Tuna sampling was conducted in
2019 and 2020 at the fish market named Mercado Municipal Central Leste, located in São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil.
The fish sampled at the market were caught from commercial fishery done by the
fishing fleet of Areia Branca
Harbor. This fishing fleet operates in the western equatorial Atlantic Ocean
(off northern Brazil), in the vicinity of one of the oceanic buoys of PIRATA
Program (“Pilot Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic”). The fishing area is located
in waters that are 4,000 m deep, at 0°, 35 °W, and 600 km offshore
(international waters). The sample size for T. albacares
was 32 individuals in 2019, and 18 individuals in 2020; and for T. obesus it was 26 and six individuals in 2019 and 2020,
respectively. Sample of meat from the fish belly (5 g of wet weight) was
removed from each individual at the fish market. The samples were brought to
the laboratory and kept frozen (-20 °C) in dry sterile vials, freeze-dried and
homogenized with a mortar and pestle (Table 1). Mercury determinations followed
Bastos et al. (1998) and were conducted with an ICP-OES (Varian, Liberty II
Model 720 ES, Australia) with a cold vapor accessory (VGA-77). The recovery
values for the certified reference material (DORM-4) ranged 85─95 %. The
coefficients of variation of the triplicate analyses were <10%. The results
were calculated as ng·g-1 dry weight and converted to a wet weight
basis. For T. albacares, the water loss after
freeze-drying was 74±1%, and for T. obesus, it
was 73±1%.
The maximum permissible limit for
Hg in predatory fishes established by the World Health Organization ―WHO
(FAO/WHO 1991) and Brazilian Government (ANVISA 2021), is 1 mg·kg-1
(or 1,000 ng·g-1) wet weight. The estimated daily intake proposed in
Caldas et al. (2016) was used for the intake analysis: EDI = C·IR/BW, where EDI
is the estimated dietary intake of Hg (µg·day-1·kg-1), C
is the Hg concentration in the fish meat (µg·g-1 wet weight), IR is
the intake rate in Brazil (27 g·day-1; Barone et al. 2017), and BW
is the body weight (70 kg for a Brazilian adult). The provisional upper
tolerable weekly intakes - PTWI limit for Hg is 1.6 µg·week-1·kg-1
or 0.57 µg·day-1·kg-1 (FAO/WHO 2003). We calculated
the IR of tuna meat that would be necessary to reach the intake limit for Hg.
We considered the median Hg concentration as a fixed variable and applied the
EDI formula to estimate the IR needed to reach the intake limits established by
the FAO/WHO (2003).
ANOVAs (aov
function, base package; R Core Team 2022) were used to test the differences in
Hg concentrations among the species and sampling years. Estimations of Hg
intake due to tuna consumption by humans were conducted by Monte Carlo Method (Khitalishvili 2016) to incorporate the variability of each
variable (Hg concentration in fish, human intake rate and body weight) in the
final results.
Total Hg
concentration varied between sampling years for T. albacares,
and between the two tuna species (higher Hg concentrations in T. obesus) (Table 1). T. albacares
sampled in 2020 was larger and heavier than in 2019, and the size difference
was consistent with the Hg concentrations, reflecting Hg bioaccumulation during
the fish growth (Lacerda et al. 2017). The enrichment
of more bioavailable organic Hg complexes in deep waters, such as
methylmercury, and the tuna foraging depths explain the interspecific
differences in Hg concentrations (Choy et al. 2009; Ferriss & Essington
2011; Lacerda et al. 2017).
The Hg
concentrations were below the maximum tolerable limits established by ANVISA
(2021) and FAO/WHO (1991) for fishery products, except for five T. obesus whose concentrations were higher than the limit
(1,000 ng g−1) (Figure 1A). The estimates for Hg intake due to tuna
consumption were below the tolerable intake limit established by the FAO/WHO
(Figure 1B). This result was expected since the Brazilian per capita
intake of fishery products is half of the world intake (9.75 kg·year-1
x 20.5 kg·year-1) (Barone et al. 2017; FAO 2020).
Currently, Brazil exports whole
large tuna to Indonesia, Vietnam and the United States
(https://www.volza.com/exports-brazil/brazil-export-data-of-whole+tuna).
Considering that whole large tuna are exported to other countries, it is
important to conduct case-by-case health risk assessments. In this sense, tuna
consumption from the western equatorial Atlantic Ocean would pose a risk for
human populations that ingest more than 80 g·day-1 tuna meat (IR
based on our most contaminated fish: T. obesus
individuals caught in 2019). Both tuna species are safe for intake as seafood,
at least in the present, but we recommend regular monitoring of both
consumption rates and Hg levels, since the encouragement of seafood consumption
has increased worldwide, as well the anthropic pollution that reaches the ocean
basins.
Table 1. Sample size, fork length, weight and Hg
concentration (wet and dry basis) in the muscle of Thunnus
albacares and Thunnus
obesus from the western equatorial Atlantic
Ocean. The values are shown as the median ± interquartile range (minimum and
maximum). Lowercase letters compare the variables between sampling years for
the same species. Uppercase letters compare the variables between species and
consider the data from both samplings.
|
Species |
T. albacares |
T. obesus |
||
|
Year |
2019 (n = 32) |
2020 (n = 18) |
2019 (n = 26) |
2020(n = 6) |
|
Fork length (cm) |
123.5 ± 22.3a (97–167) |
139.5 ± 9.3b (129–176) |
104 ± 38a (91–181) |
104.5 ± 5.3a (101–111) |
|
Weight (kg) |
25.5 ± 19.6a (12.6–65.2) |
39.5 ± 9.5b (29.3–76.1) |
18.2 ± 20.7a (11.9–72.3) |
18.5 ± 1.5a (16.9–20.4) |
|
Hg (ng·g-1 wet weight) |
168.3 ± 80.2a (82.1–455.1) |
309.5 ± 98.8b (103.2–570.3) |
499 ± 195.9a (204.1–1347.5) |
457.7 ± 51.9a (387.7–475.1) |
|
Hg (ng·g-1 dry weight) |
636.6 ± 303.4a (310.6–1722) |
1170.9 ± 373.9b (390.5–2157.6) |
1840.5 ± 722.5a (752.8–4970.4) |
1688.5 ± 191.4a (1430–1752.5) |
|
Log [Hg (ng·g-1 wet weight)]·kg-1 |
6.7 ± 2.5a (3.4–11.9) |
7.2 ± 2.7b (3.5–19.1) |
26.7 ± 8.4a (4.9–49.7) |
23.4 ± 2.8a (20.2–28.1) |
|
All samples |
T. albacares |
T. obesus |
||
|
Fork length (cm) |
132.5 ± 23.5A |
104 ± 20B |
||
|
Weight (kg) |
32.4 ± 20A |
18.2 ± 9.1B |
||
|
Hg (ng·g-1 wet weight) |
212 ± 149.6B |
475.1 ± 107.8A |
||
|
Hg (ng·g-1 dry weight) |
802 ± 565.9B |
1752.5 ± 397.7A |
||
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