Pergamon PII: S0025-326X(98)00161-6 Mamw Pollutiolt Bulletim Vol, 36, No. 3, pp. 193-2(10, 1998 © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0025-326X/98 $19.00+0.00 The Sandhopper Talitrus saltator as a Trace Metal Biomonitor in the Gulf of Gdansk, Poland P. S. RAINBOW*:[:, W. FIALKOWSKIt and B. D. SMITH* *School of Biological Sciences, Queen Mary and WestfieId College, London E1 4NS, UK tDepartrnent of Hydrobiology, Jagiellonian University, ul. Oleandry 2a, 30-063 Krakow, Poland There are significant differences between the accumu- lated trace metal concentrations (Zn, Cd, Cu, Pb, Ag, Ni, Fe, Mn) of the talitrid amphipod crustacean Talitrus saitator collected from the strandline of sites around the Gulf of Gdansk, Southern Baltic in July 1996, after allowance for size effects by analysis of covariance. These have resulted from significant geographical differences in the local bioavailabilities of trace metals, which are variably dependent on outflows from the River Vistula (Zn, Cd, Fe, Mn) or from local sources around the Gulf (Cu, Pb). The use of an easily collected littoral organism has established a baseline measure of local trace metal pollution against which future changes can be compared. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Keywords: biomonitoring; trace metals; Gulf of Gdansk; Baltic; Talitrus; amphipod crustacean. The Gulf of Gdansk on the northern coast of Poland lies at the southern end of the Baltic Sea (Fig. 1). In the north the Gulf is bordered by the Hel Peninsula with the town of Hel at the tip. The western part is represented by the Bay of Puck, the innermost shallow part of which (Inner Bay of Puck or Puck Lagoon) is separated with its own pattern of water circulation (Cyberski and Nowacki, 1993). To the south lie the three adjoining cities of Gdynia, Sopot and Gdansk. To the immediate east of Gdansk are the three main direct outlets of the River Vistula, the basin of which occupies more than half the area of Poland and includes the major industrial regions and cities of Katowice, Krakow and Warsaw. The Gulf of Gdansk has dissolved concentrations of the trace metals zinc, copper, cadmium and lead that are greater than those in the adjacent southern Baltic SPresent address: Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5DB, UK. Sea proper (Korzeniewski and Neugebauer, 1991). There is evidence of anthropogenic input of these four trace metals (Szefer, 1990), copper and zinc via the River Vistula and cadmium and lead via the atmosphere (Korzeniewski and Neugebauer, 1991). Furthermore analyses of bottom sediments in the region of the Gulf of Gdansk indicate raised concen- trations of zinc, lead and manganese in the vicinity of Gdynia (Szczepanska and Uscinowicz, 1994). Analyses of biological material also indicate the presence of raised trace metal bioavailabilities in the region of the Gulf of Gdansk. The green alga Clado- phora mpestris collected in the Bay of Puck had higher manganese contents than did specimens of the same alga from the coast of the open Baltic Sea (Szefer and Skwarzec, 1988). Mytilus edulis collected sublittorally from two sites, one in the Bay of Puck and the other south of Hel, appeared to have high soft tissue concen- trations of zinc, cadmium, lead, nickel, manganese and iron (but not of copper nor cobalt) in comparison with mussels collected elsewhere in the world (Szefer and Szefer, 1985). Szefer and Wolowicz (1993) reported elevated levels of zinc and cadmium in another sublit- toral bivalve Cerastoderma glaucum from the Gulf of Gdansk, compared with the same cockle from sites in France and the Mediterranean. The aim of this study was therefore to carry out a trace metal biomonitoring survey of the Gulf of Gdansk using biomonitors easily collectable from the shore to provide both a picture of present local geographical variability in the bioavailabilities of trace metals, and a baseline against which future surveys could be measured. It will thus be possible to monitor the efficacy of any future projects reducing metal emissions into the River Vistula or limiting local coastal emissions of metals in solution or atmospher- ically. It was originally hoped to use a suite of biomoni- tors in this study including for example littoral seaweeds, barnacles and talitrid amphipods (see Rainbow, 1995b), but in the event it was possible to 193