Review of the toxic trace elements arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury in seafood species from Algeria and contiguous waters in the Southwestern Mediterranean Sea

Overview

Mehouel and Fowler reviewed published concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, lead, total mercury, and methylmercury in seafood species from Algerian coastal waters and compared selected data with neighboring Mediterranean studies from Tunisia and Morocco. The source is secondary evidence: it compiles values from earlier seafood studies rather than generating new measurements. Arsenic is reported as As without inorganic speciation, while mercury values distinguish Hg from MeHg where the source does so.

Key numbers

The abstract states that the review found data mainly for fish and mollusks, with lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) most studied. It also states that no studies were found for arsenic (As) and methylmercury (MeHg) in mollusks and crustaceans, and none for total mercury (Hg) in crustaceans.

Table 1 reports Algerian fish muscle values as mg kg−1 wet weight:

Table 2 reports Algerian mussel values as mg kg−1 dry weight:

Table 3 reports Algerian shrimp muscle values as mg kg−1 dry weight: rose shrimp (Parapenaeus longirostris) Cd 0.64 at Skikda and 0.46 at El Tarf; red shrimp (Aristeus antennatus) Cd 0.36 at Skikda and 0.63 at El Tarf; rose shrimp Pb 0.55 at Skikda and 0.64 at El Tarf; and red shrimp Pb 0.61 at Skikda and 0.58 at El Tarf.

Table 4 reports Tunisian fish muscle values as mg kg−1 wet weight: Cd 0.01 in red mullet and 0.01 in surmullet from the Kerkennah Islands; Cd 0.76 in Diplodus annularis from the south coast of Sfax; Pb 0.08 in round sardinella from the Gulf of Tunis, 0.16 in red mullet and 0.18 in surmullet from Kerkennah Islands, and 0.17 in Diplodus annularis from the south coast of Sfax; Hg 0.21 in round sardinella from the Gulf of Tunis, 0.05 in red mullet, 0.06 in surmullet, and 0.20 in Diplodus annularis. For Tunisian caged mussel soft parts, Table 4 reports dry-weight Cd 2.94, 2.18, 1.79, 1.74, 1.68, and 1.79; Pb 0.74, 0.54, 0.65, 0.45, 0.63, and 0.54; and Hg 0.2, 0.15, 0.15, 0.22, 0.13, and 0.21 across Tabarka, La Galite, Bizerte Lagoon, Sidi Ali, Rades, and Korbous. Tunisian blue swimming crab muscle from the Gulf of Gabes is reported as dry-weight Cd 0.21 and Pb 0.4.

Table 5 reports Moroccan fish muscle Hg as mg kg−1 wet weight: pilchard from the Martil coast 0.137, common mullet 0.096, and hake 0.101. It reports Moroccan mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) soft-parts As from the aluminum (Al) Hoceima coastline as 10.70 mg kg−1 dry weight, and common prawn (Palaemon serratus) muscle from the coast of the Nador as dry-weight Cd 0.00071 and Pb 0.0988.

The discussion states that As in sardine muscle from Bejaia was 2.98 mg kg−1 wet weight, Pb in little tunny muscle from Mostaganem was 0.49 mg kg−1 wet weight, and Pb in Mytilus galloprovincialis muscle tissue from Oran was 10.67 mg kg−1 dry weight. It also states that in sardine, MeHg represented 75% to nearly 100% of measured total Hg levels.

Methods (brief)

Implications

The source is useful for routing Algerian and neighboring southwestern Mediterranean seafood occurrence context to marine fish, predatory fish, non-predatory fish, and shellfish rows. Because it is a secondary review, downstream benchmark work should chase primary papers when row fit, sample design, species, basis, and statistic type need audit-grade extraction. The source is especially useful for gap identification: it explicitly notes sparse coverage for arsenic and methylmercury in several Algerian seafood groups.

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git.