Many banned persistent organic pollutants (POPs) remain for decades in the aquatic environment and can have harmful effects on long-lived predators because of their high bioaccumulation and biomagnification potentials. We investigated the occurrence and levels of 18 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 16 organochlorine pesticides in European pond turtles (n = 174) from April to July 2018 in the Camargue wetland, France. Although the Camargue was highly contaminated in previous decades, plasma occurrence and levels of POPs were very low: we were able to quantify only 3 of the 34 compounds we analyzed in >10% of the turtles. The burdens from POPs did not differ between males and females and were uncorrelated with sampling date and body mass. We observed differences in POP burdens between turtles from the 2 sampling sites. One possible explanation is that the sampling sites were in different agricultural hydraulic systems: plasma occurrence and levels were higher for PCB-52 and hexachlorobenzene in turtles captured in drainage channels and for PCB-153 at the site that receives irrigation. Finally, the occurrence and levels of PCB-153 in turtles increased with age, likely because of bioaccumulation and much higher exposure 20 to 30 yr ago than now. Environ Toxicol Chem 2021;40:2261–2268. © 2021 SETAC

中文翻译：

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法国卡马格湿地欧洲池龟 (Emys orbicularis) 遗留持久性有机污染物水平的决定因素

许多被禁止的持久性有机污染物 (POPs) 在水生环境中保留了数十年，并且由于其高生物累积和生物放大潜力，可能对长寿的捕食者产生有害影响。我们调查了欧洲池龟（n = 174) 2018 年 4 月至 7 月在法国卡马格湿地。尽管在过去的几十年里，Camargue 受到了高度污染，但血浆中 POPs 的发生率和水平非常低：我们只能量化我们分析的 34 种化合物中的 3 种，其中超过 10% 的海龟。持久性有机污染物的负担在男性和女性之间没有差异，并且与采样日期和体重无关。我们观察到来自 2 个采样点的海龟之间 POP 负担的差异。一种可能的解释是采样地点位于不同的农业水力系统中：在排水渠中捕获的海龟中 PCB-52 和六氯苯的血浆发生率和水平较高，而在接受灌溉的地点，PCB-153 的血浆发生率和水平较高。最后，海龟中 PCB-153 的出现和水平随着年龄的增长而增加，环境毒物化学2021；40:2261–2268。© 2021 SETAC