Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the gonads of Barbus barbus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Maps with grey or even white spaces are still present in spite of the fact that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are at the forefront of research in aquatic toxicology and environmental safety. This is also the case for the Mureș River basin. The intensive use of industrial substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides such as organochlorine compounds (OCPs) has caused global contamination of the aquatic environment. In our study we have found very high concentrations of both PCBs (2110–169,000 ng/g lipid weight ΣPCB, 1950–166,000 ng/g lipid weight ΣPCB7) and OCPs (1130–7830 ng/g lipid weight ΣDDT, 47.6–2790 ng/g lipid weight ΣHCH, 5.53–35.6 ng/g lipid weight ΣChlordane, and 6.74–158 ng/g lipid weight HCB) in the gonad tissue of Barbus barbus (Linnaeus, 1758) males and females. Contrary to most studies where the weight, length, and lipid percentage are positively correlated with the concentration of POPs from different tissue types, we observed a downward trend for the lipid normalized concentrations of some pollutants in gonads while these indices were actually increasing. The decrease of lipid normalized POPs with the increase of CF and lipid percentage may be due to the fact that individuals are eliminating hard and soft roes every year during reproduction which could mean that some quantities of pollutants are also eliminated along with the hard and soft roes. The high POPs concentrations found in our study should be a needed wakeup call for environmentalists and a starting point in developing monitoring and management measures for these pollutants. [Display omitted] •Barbus barbus gonads are highly contaminated with POPs.•Higher concentrations of PCBs in Barbus barbus gonads than in other similar studies.•Higher concentrations of OCPs in Barbus barbus gonads than in other similar studies.