Bioaccumulation of lead by clams (Meretrix meretrix) collected from the Saudi Coast of the Arabian Gulf

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Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate Pb bioaccumulation in clams (Meretrix meretrix) living in different salinities. Several hundred clams and samples of sediment and seawater were collected from 12 locations on the Saudi coast of the Arabian Gulf. Soft tissue from each clam was removed and digested separately in double distilled concentrated HNO3 acid. Duplicate samples of the sediments were also digested in concentrated HNO3 acid. Lead in the seawater samples was extracted using pyrolidine carbodithioic acid-chloroform system. Lead in all the aliquots were determined using an inductively coupled argon plasma analyzer. Lead concentrations varied between 0.01 and 2.91 mg kg−1 soft tissue in clams, 1.12 and 23.57 mg kg−1 in sediments, and 1.7 to 4.22 ng L−1 in seawater. The analysis of variance of the analytical data revealed that intra- and inter-station differences in Pb concentrations in clams and sediments were significant (p p <0.05) to Pb concentrations in clams. Correlation between Pb in the sediments and bioaccumulated Pb in clams was poor (p <0.05). Clams from the sampling stations that could be affected by automobile emissions bioaccumulated relatively higher Pb than those collected from other remote stations. Bioaccumulation of Pb depicted a seasonal trend but data were too limited to draw a conclusion.

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