Bioacumulación y biomagnificación de metales pesados en peces, moluscos y crustáceos de mayor consumo en las costas de países sudamericanos. Revisión de literatura

Abstract

Heavy metals are an important source of contamination of the aquatic environment and, through it, of the beings that inhabit it turning out to be an important transfer resource in marine food webs, being of great relevance those species of greater demand for consumption since they could represent a greater risk for the health of consumers, which depends on the bioaccumulation and biomagnification processes of their species. The objective of this degree work was to provide information from published scientific studies on how the contamination of the aquatic environment with heavy metals (As, Cd, Hg and Pb) affects the most consumed marine species in the South American countries of Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Chile and how these species bioaccumulate in their specific target organs and the manifestation of biomagnification. For this purpose, a review of the state of the art on these phenomena in fish, mollusks and crustaceans of major consumption in the coasts of South American countries was carried out, resorting to different databases of scientific publications and university digital repositories. Among the most relevant results is the report of bioaccumulation of As, Cd, Hg and Pb in several organs and tissues in many of the most consumed species in the countries mentioned, such as gills, liver, kidney, muscle, hepatopancreas and gonads. There is a lack of biomagnification studies of heavy metals in the species described; however, it was possible to identify that the most analyzed and most biomagnified metal is Hg.