Acknowledgements We thank the crews and scientific staff on the cruises of FRS Scotia during which these samples were collected. We are grateful to Dr Coby Needle of Marine Scotland for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript, and to the anonymous reviewer for his constructive comments. We wish to dedicate this study to the memory of Dr H.H. Williams, whose original idea it was to investigate D. merlangi as an indicator of hydrocarbon pollution.Peer reviewedPostprin
