Heavy metals are natural trace components of the aquatic environment, but their levels have increased due to industrial agriculture, mining activities, industrial activity, shipping accident. Pollution studies in the ROPME area including the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea are extremely important because this region is shallow, semi-enclosed, and has a very high evaporation rate and poor flushing characteristics. Other Iranian scientists reported the pollution from inland water but our study was the first on evaluation of Cadmium pollution from northern coastal waters of the Persian Gulf, belonging to the Iranian coastlines. The aim of this study was to examine the quality of local seafood in terms of heavy metal contamination by examining the two commercial fish species, Euryglossa orientalis and Psettodes erumei through the determination of Cd concentration levels in the muscle and liver tissues of the fish, monitoring the ROPME region, and investigating the relationship between fish size and metal concentration in the different tissues of these two flat fishes

Jaafarzadeh Haghighi, N.

Khoshnood, R.

Khoshnood, Z.

Aquatic Commons

   Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences                                                               10(3) 537-540                     2011         
                                       
Cadmium determination in two flat fishes from two fishery 
regions in north of the Persian Gulf 
 
Jaafarzadeh Haghighi N.
1*
; Khoshnood
 
R.
2
; Khoshnood Z.
3
 
 
Received: August 2010                  Accepted: December 2010 
 
1-Environmental Technology Reaserch Center & Department of environmental health, school of health, Ahwaz 
Jondishapour Medical Sciences University, Ahwaz, Iran. 
2-Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research, Tarbiat Moallem Branch, Tehran ,Iran. 
3-Islamic Azad University, Dezful branch, Dezful, Iran. 
*Corresponding author’s email: na.haghighifard@gmail.com 
 
Keywords: Cadmium, Euryglossa orientalis, Psettodes erumei, Persian Gulf-Iranian coastal 
lines 
Heavy metals are natural trace components 
of the aquatic environment, but their levels 
have increased due to industrial 
agriculture, mining activities, industrial 
activity, shipping accident (De Mora et al, 
2004). Pollution studies in the ROPME 
area including the Persian Gulf and the 
Oman Sea are extremely important 
because this region is shallow, semi-
enclosed, and has a very high evaporation 
rate and poor flushing characteristics 
(Shepperd, 1993). 
Other Iranian scientists reported the 
pollution from inland water ( Haghighi, 
2010) but our study was the first on 
evaluation of Cadmium pollution from 
northern coastal waters of the Persian 
Gulf, belonging to the Iranian coastlines. 
The aim of this study was to examine the 
quality of local seafood in terms of heavy 
metal contamination by examining the two 
commercial fish species, Euryglossa 
orientalis and Psettodes erumei through 
the determination of Cd concentration 
levels in the muscle and liver tissues of the 
fish, monitoring the ROPME region, and 
investigating the relationship between fish 
size and metal concentration in the 
different tissues of these two flat fishes. 
 24 samples of fish species, 
including Euryglossa orientalis and 
Psettodes erumei, have been caught from 
April to June 2006. These two species 
were collected from two fishery regions, 
Bandar-Abbas and Bandar-Lengeh north 
of Persian Gulf. The fish species were 
randomly collected from commercial 
catches that landed at the local fishing 
ports. 
Immediately after the collection, fish 
samples were stored on ice in an isolated 
box and transferred to the reference 
laboratory of the Hormozgan 
environmental deputy. Body weight and 
length of fishes were measured. Then male 
fishes were selected and a part of the 
dorsal muscle and liver tissue was 
removed and prepared for processing. All 
of the samples were dried at 60 
°
 C for 48 
h in a laboratory oven (Pyle, 2005).We use 
MOOPAM method for samples 
prepartions (MOOPAM, 1999). All 
Digested samples were analyzed using 
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538   Jafarzadeh Haghighi et al., Cadmium determination in two flat fishes from two fishery    ……… 
 
Flame Atomic Absorption 
Spectrophotometer (Varian Model- Liberty 
series II). Statistical analyses were done 
using the SPSS software (version 11.5).  
The interval ranges of the length of 
E. orientalis and P.Erumei caught from the 
two stations were 24-41 cm and 31.5–58 
cm and whose weight were 204-101 g and 
797-2650 g, respectively. Table 1 presents 
the concentration range and the mean and 
standard deviation of Cd based on dry 
weight (µg g
-1
) of muscle and liver tissues 
of E. orientalis and P. erumei from the two 
sampling areas. 
 
Table 1: Cd concentration of E. orientalis and P. erumei tissues (µg g
-1
) 
Species Tissue Range Mean ± sd  
Bandar Abbas Bandar Lengeh Bandar Abbas Bandar Lengeh 
E. orientalis Liver 0.2-0.7 0.11-0.5 0.31±0.09 0.24±0.13 
Muscle 0.06-0.4 0.01-0.32 0.2±0.13 0.13±0.11 
P. erumei Liver 0.17-0.3 0.16-0.26 0.22±.05 0.2±0.04 
Muscle 0.1-0.25 0.05-0.18 0.15±.06 0.1±.05 
 
Cd concentrations in the muscle and liver 
of E. orientalis in the two stations were 
shown to have significant differences 
(p<0.05). The Cd concentration of E. 
orientalis was higher in Bandar-Abbas 
station than in Bandar-Lengeh. The same 
results were found for P. erumei.  
These results indicate that the highest Cd 
concentrations were generally found at 
station 1 (Bandar Abbas). These reflect the 
present environmental problems because 
Bandar-Abbas is an industrial region with 
many large factories dealing with 
petrochemicals, oil and gas extraction and 
transportation, agriculture, and production 
of pesticides and some activities like 
unmanaged shipping activities, river 
runoff, untreated sewage discharge by 
coastal settlements, and dumping of toxic 
and industrial wastes into the sea accent 
this pollution.  
Concentration of Cd in the muscle 
and liver of the two species was positively 
correlated with fish length and weight. 
These results were similar to the results of 
Romeo et al. (1999) and they confirm the 
findings of various studies. 
A significant positive correlation 
between body weight and length was 
found in all fish samples (p <0.05) (Figure 
1). This positive relationship was seen for 
the two species and in the two stations. 
Muscle tissues generally have lower Cd 
concentration than liver tissues. This fact 
is probably related to the organism’s 
biological process cycle. Many species of 
fish exhibited higher Cd concentrations in 
liver relative to those in the muscle, but 
levels have generally been reported to be 
<10 µg g
-1
 (Zauk et al, 1999). 
In general, the obtained values of Cd 
content in muscle and liver are similar to 
those found in previous studies (De mora 
et al., 2004). The concentration of Cd 
detected in fish was compared with 
reported values for other regions in an 
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                                          Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences, 10(3), 2011                                          539                                       
effort to determine the degree of contamination in the study area. 
Figure 1: Relation between Cd concentration weight and length of P. erumei from Bandar-
Abbasand Bandar-Lengeh station.( X axis: weight; Y axis: concentration; Liver, 
Muscle;a,b,e,f: Bandar-Abbas;c,d,g,h:Bandar-Lengeh) 
Cd accumulation in fish caugh from the 
Persian Gulf was about six times more 
than that of Manila Bay (Maricar, 1997), 
1.45 times more than that of Calcasieu 
River and Lake (Ramelow, 1990), but 1.5 
times less than that of Gulf of Cambay 
(Sarvina, 2007), 6.5 times less than 
Iskenderun Bay (Aysun, 2008), 3 times 
less than Arabian Sea (Tariq, 1993), 
Pakistan, and 3-7 times less than 
Mediterranean Sea (Canli, 2003).  
Comparison of metal concentrations in 
Table 4 reveals that the anthropogenic 
loading of Cd in the Persian Gulf region is 
relatively high. It shows that fish from the 
Persian Gulf were being affected by 
effluents from metallurgical, ship-
breaking, chloroalkali industries. 
This study was carried out to provide 
useful data on Cd concentrations in two 
flat fish species found in water bodies 
north of the Persian Gulf. Our results 
showed generally higher Cd concentrations 
in liver tissue, suggesting that metal levels 
of nonbiologically essential elements such 
as Cd in fish may increase with prolonged 
exposure to potentially polluting sources 
and thus consumption of these fishes may 
pose a threat to human health. The results 
also suggest a significant relationship 
between Cd concentration and length and 
weight of fishes, confirming the 
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   540  Jafarzadeh Haghighi et al., Cadmium determination in two flat fishes from two fishery ……… 
 
observation that flat fishes can be useful 
bioindicators of sea water pollution. 
Acknowledgments 
We express our special thanks to Hossein 
Pasha, M. Afkhami, M. Ehsanpour, for 
their valuable help in fish sampling, 
laboratory and data analysis. This work 
was funded by the Islamic Azad 
University, Science and Research Branch 
of Ahwaz. 
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Short communication: Cadmium determination in two flat fishes from two fishery regions in north of the Persian Gulf

http://aquaticcommons.org/22445/1/IFRO-v10n3p537-en.pdf

Short communication: Cadmium determination in two flat fishes from two fishery regions in north of the Persian Gulf

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