Abstract

In this paper, the relationships of Cu concentrations between the snail’s different soft tissues and surface sediments were evaluated by using multivariate analysis, namely cluster analysis, correlation analysis and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. Three findings can be highlighted based on the present study. First, different concentrations of Cu were found in the different soft tissues, indicating different mechanisms of sequestration and regulations of Cu in these different tissues. By comparing the Cu concentrations in similar tissues, spatial variations of Cu were found in the different sampling sites although there was no consistent pattern of Cu in these sampling sites. Second, the digestive caecum was a better biomonitoring organ for Cu contamination. Third, higher Cu contamination might not necessarily result in higher Cu bioavailability to T. telescopium based on the cluster analysis. In general, all the different soft tissues could be used as biomonitoring tissues of Cu bioavailabilities and contamination in Malaysian intertidal mudflats provided they were statistically analyzed by using a multivariate approach. To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive study of Cu accumulation in the different soft tissues of T. telescopium from tropical intertidal area in relation to sediment data.

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