Environmental assessment of trace element bioaccumulation in sipunculan from seagrass and wetland sediments I-Ting Hsieh & Hin-Kiu Mok & Fung-Chi Ko & S. Açik Received: 7 January 2012 / Accepted: 28 May 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract This study is the first measurement of trace elements in sipunculan and their surrounding sediments. The bioaccumulation characteristics of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), and zinc (Zn) were analyzed and compared in two sipunculan species, Sipuncula nudus and Siphonosoma vastum, which were collected from seagrass beds and wetlands in Taiwan. The sipunculan and sediment sam- ples were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Both sipunculan in the wetlands and seagrass beds had a high Cu bioaccumulation mecha- nism. Multivariate analysis, principle component analy- sis, and partial least squares for discriminant analysis of trace element levels and bioaccumulation factors were used to distinguish the element distributions that corre- sponded to the two habitats (seagrass beds and wet- lands). Different levels of certain trace elements in these two sipunculan species may result not only from the environmental factors of various habitats but also from the accumulation characteristics of various species. The As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, and Zn concentrations were markedly lower in sipunculan than in other invertebrates from the adjacent polluted regions. The public health issues regarding the consumption of sipunculan are also discussed. Keywords Sipunculan . Trace element . Sediment . Bioaccumulation Introduction Sipunculan are marine deposit-feeding benthonic macro-invertebrates abundant along the intertidal hab- itats of the sea shore. They are found at various bio- topes, including sandy, muddy, silty, and gravelly bottoms, and live under beds of eelgrass and other vegetation, as well as under rocks, among coralline algae, and mangroves (Hsieh et al. 2009). The sipun- culan species have a wide geographical distribution in the China Sea region. Sipunculan likely accumulate many anthropogenic contaminants by feeding/filtering the contaminated sediments or benthos in the coastal areas, and since they are edible marine species and Environ Monit Assess DOI 10.1007/s10661-012-2707-9 I.-T. Hsieh : H.-K. Mok Institute of Marine Biology and Asia-Pacific Ocean Research Center, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan F.-C. Ko (*) Institute of Marine Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, National Dong-Hwa University, Pingtung, Taiwan e-mail: ko@mail.ndhu.edu.tw F.-C. Ko National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, 2, Houwan Road, Checheng, Pingtung, Taiwan S. Açik Dokuz Eylul University Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology, Inciralti-Izmir, Turkey