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Arsenic Speciation in Sediments and Representative Biota of Sundarban Wetland

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Trace Metals in a Tropical Mangrove Wetland

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Abstract

The case study highlights the concentration of total arsenic and individual arsenic species in four soft-bottom benthic marine polychaetous annelids of diverse feeding guilds from the intertidal regions of Indian Sundarban wetland. An additional six sites were also considered exclusively for surface sediments as this would provide important information regarding cycling of arsenic in this estuarine system. Polychaetes (Perinereis cultrifera, Ganganereis sootai, Lumbrinereis notocirrata, and Dendronereis arborifera) and the host sediments were collected adopting a standard protocol and subsequently measured for their TAs arsenic content using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Concentration of arsenic (As) in polychaete body tissues exhibited wide range of variations, suggesting species-specific characteristics and inherent peculiarities in arsenic metabolism. Arsenic was generally present in polychaetes as arsenate (As V, ranges from 0.16 to 0.50 mg kg−1) or arsenite (As III) (from 0.10 to 0.41 mg kg−1) (30–53% as inorganic As) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMAV < 1–25%). Arsenobetaine (AB < 16%) and PO4-arsenoriboside (8–48%) were also detected as minor constituents, while monomethylarsonic acid (MAV) was not detected in the polychaetes. The maximum TAs (14.7 mg kg−1 dry wt) was recorded in the polychaete D. arborifera inhabited in the vicinity of a sewage outfall in which the majority of As was present as an uncharacterized compound (10.3 mg kg−1 dry wt) eluted prior to AB. For host sediments, total As ranged from 2.5 to 10.4 mg kg−1. The results support the importance of speciation analysis of arsenic, because of the ubiquitous occurrence of this metalloid in the environment, and its variable toxicity depending on the chemical form, present.

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  1. Department of Marine Science, University of Calcutta, Calcutta, West Bengal, India

    Santosh Kumar Sarkar

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Sarkar, S.K. (2018). Arsenic Speciation in Sediments and Representative Biota of Sundarban Wetland. In: Trace Metals in a Tropical Mangrove Wetland . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2793-2_8

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