A Comparative Assessment of Content of a Number of Heavy Metals in Soft Tissues of Mytilus trossulus A. Gould, 1850, Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819 (Bivalvia, Mytilidae) and their Hybrid Forms from Minonosok Bay of Peter the Great Bay (Sea of Japan)

Abstract

A comparative assessment of the contents of Fe, Zn, Cu, Cd, Mn, Pb, and Ni in the soft tissues of bivalve mollusks Mytilus trossulus, Mytilus galloprovincialis, and their hybrid forms from Minonosok Bay of Peter the Great Bay (Sea of Japan) has been made. No significant differences in the accumulation of Fe and Cd in the tissues of all studied groups of mollusks were found. It has been shown that the hybrid forms of these species had more intensive growth, and against this background they accumulated significantly lower concentrations of such metals as Cu, Mn, Pb, and Ni in their soft tissues compared to the parental species. A significant negative correlation has been found between the accumulation of these metals in the tissues of mollusks and the length and weight of their shells and whole soft tissues M. trossulus, which had a significantly lower weight of valves and soft tissues, differed from M. galloprovincialis in the accumulation of significantly higher concentrations of Zn, for which no relationship has been found between its content and all the studied size and weight characteristics. The conducted testing did not reveal any significant dependence of the accumulation of all studied metals, with the exception of Pb, in the tissues of mollusks on their condition index. The results we obtained indicate the need to take the above features of the trace metal composition of the soft tissues of the studied species into account when using them in monitoring environmental pollution with heavy metals.