Study on the heavy metal bioconcentrations of the Shadegan international wetland mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, by inductively coupled plasma technique

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the levels of heavy metal bioconcentration of the mosquitofish(gambusia affinis) in shadegan international wetland. sampling including the water, waterbed sediment andmosquitofish was carried out from the selected sampling sites during october and november 2011, and analyzedby the icp-oes. results show that the water has poor qualitative condition, according to epa and who waterquality standards. the level of the water cr in the selected sites in both months and the levels of fe, mn and znduring october in the sw1 site were higher than the instrumental detection limits indicating that the water wascontaminated with these metals in the mentioned sites and months. the levels of the waterbed sediment as, co,cr, cu, fe, mn, pb and zn, and mosquitofish cr, cu, fe, mn, zn, co and cd were much higher than the instrumentaldetection limits, indicating that the waterbed sediment and mosquitofish were contaminated with them duringoctober and november in the selected sites. statistical assessments reveal that there is a significant differencebetween the mentioned contaminated water, waterbed sediment and mosquitofish heavy metals (all p-values < 0.05).in overall, it is considered that the contaminated heavy metals can be accumulated in the waterbed sediment andbioconcentrated in the wildlife tissues, then finally can be entered in the marine food chains and biomagnified thereafter long periods. in conclusion, this paper confirmed that the g. affinis can be used as a bioindicator of heavy metalpollution in marine ecosystems such as wetlands.