BIOLOGICAL ACCUMULATION AND MONITORING OF CHEMICAL WASTES IN ARCTIC WATERS.

The biological accumulation and monitoring of chemical wastes are considered with particular reference to the Solway Firth, U. K. Monitoring of the influence of chemical wastes may be concerned with somatic or reproductive responses and is more usually the former. It is shown that size and abundance are not an indication of a species fertility which is crucial to its conservation. Diet has an important influence upon the magnitude of the trace element burden of gastropod molluscs and it is shown that the fertility of Patella vulgata and Littorina littorea is unaffected by marked increases in the trace element burden. In this study, some of the species examined viz. , the polychaete worms Phyllodoce maculata and Scoloplos armiger, the decapod crustacean Pagurus bernhardus and the gastropod molluscs, Littorina littorea and Thais lapillus, have a distribution which extends into arctic waters.