Dietary toxicity of metals in aquatic animals: Recent studies and perspectives

Over the past decade, the quantitative recognition of the significance of dietary exposure in the overall bioaccumulation of metals in aquatic animals has been an area of major progress in metal ecotoxicology. In several major groups of marine animals such as predators and deposit-feeding animals, diet (food) is the predominant source for metal accumulation. The importance of trophic transfer raises very fundamental questions about its toxicity to aquatic animals and in setting water quality standards which go beyond waterborne metal exposure. Ten years of research on the dietary toxicity of metals in several groups of aquatic animals, including zooplankton and fish, is reviewed. It is suggested the future studies should attempt to incorporate the dosage rate or the dietary influx rate in the design of toxicology experiments to facilitate inter-comparison of the results of different studies.