Mercury and methyl mercury concentrations in fish

Scope

Mercury and methyl mercury concentrations in fish describes concentrations of mercury and methyl mercury in fish. R↻ Concentrations of sea and freshwater fish species are studied separately.

Definition

Causality

List of parents:

• none

Data

The mercury data includes total mercury concentrations of fish species. The most commonly consumed fish species are described: Farmed salmon, wild salmon, herring, white fish, sprat, perch, flounder, pike-perch, bream, pike, vendace and burbot. Concentration data for imported fish in Finland is not available in many cases. D↷

Unit

mg/kg in fresh weight

Formula

Analytica_id:

<anacode> Table(Substances,Fishspecies)( (10K*Triangular(1.467,1.577,1.615)),(10K*Triangular(1.467,1.467,1.615)),(10K*Uniform(0.785,1.173)), (10K*Normal(0.783,(0.1*0.783))),(10K*Uniform(0.785,1.173)),(10K*Normal(0.303,(0.1*0.303))), (10K*Normal(0.422,(0.1*0.422))),(10K*Normal(0.406,(0.1*0.406))),(10K*Normal(0.493,(0.1*0.493))), (10K*Normal(0.292,(0.1*0.292))),(10K*Normal(0.751,(0.1*0.751))),(10K*Normal(0.201,(0.1*0.201))), (10K*Triangular(1.467,1.467,1.577)),(10K*Normal(0.783,(0.1*0.783))),(10K*Normal(0.303,(0.1*0.303))), (10K*Normal(0.406,(0.1*0.406))),(10K*Normal(0.493,(0.1*0.493))),(10K*Normal(0.292,(0.1*0.292))), (10K*Normal(0.751,(0.1*0.751))),(10K*Normal(0.201,(0.1*0.201))), (Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion), (Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion), (Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion), (Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion), (Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion),(Mercury*Mehg_proportion) )</anacode>

Narrative description

• There are no separate data for farmed and for wild salmon. Therefore they are assumed to be the same.
• There are no data for vendace(sea), so assumption is that the parameters are the same as vendace(inland)
• There are no data for bream(sea), so assumption is that the parameters are the same as bream(inland)
• There are no data for wild salmon(inland), so assumption is that the parameters are the same as wildsalmon(sea)

First, the mercury data was used to form lognormal distributions for each species with parameters median and geometric standard deviation. Secondly, the proportion of methyl mercury from total mercury was taken into account. Methyl mercury proportion is assumed to follow triangular distribution (author judgement) with parameters (min=0.81, mode=0.93,max=0.98). D↷

Result

Fish species	Methylmercury concentration
Farmed salmon (sea+inland)	0.06346
Wild salmon	0.06347
Herring(sea)	0.02719
White fish(sea)	0.02719
Sprat(sea)	0.01813
Perch(sea)	0.3082
Flounder(sea)	0.04533
Pike-perch(sea)	0.09972
Bream(sea)	0.05439
Pike(sea)	0.3626
Vendace(sea)	0.0725
Burbot(sea)	0.2358
Wild salmon(inland)	0.06347
White fish(inland)	0.07253
Perch(inland)	0.1269
Pike-perch(inland)	0.272
Bream(inland)	0.0544
Pike(inland)	0.3445
Vendace(inland)	0.07253
Burbot(inland)	0.1995