Avaliação da contaminação por contaminantes ambientais em peixes Cichla pinima (Tucunaré) explorados pela atividade pesqueira no rio Amapari, Amapá, Brasil

Abstract

In the Amazon region, the tailings released by gold extraction in the gold mines are pointed out as the main responsible for the contamination of water resources and aquatic biota and in the state of Amapá this reality is no different. One way to monitor water quality is to use fish species as bioindicators, since they occupy different trophic levels and are highly exploited for human consumption. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate the concentrations of heavy metals in water and in the fish species Cichla pinima (Tucunaré) exploited in Amapari River, Amapá, Brazil. The collection occurred in the month of September 2020 and was carried out at three points in the region, where the water from each point and 21 specimens of C. pinima were obtained for analysis. To determine the concentrations of Zn, Cu, Fe, Cr, Ni, Cd, Pb and Mn in fish tissues (muscles, livers and gills) and water an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Shimadzu, model AA7000) with flame atomization was used. To determine the concentration of Hg a hydride generator coupled with inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-MS) (Varian Model AA 240FS) was used. From the metal concentration values obtained both in the water and in the tissues, we followed the analysis of such data in the R program with the Rstudio platform in order to obtain the mean concentration and standard deviation data. In the analysis of contaminants in water it was observed that the metals Cd, Cu, Hg and Pb presented mean concentration values and standard deviation that exceeded the maximum limits required by CONAMA (2005) and WHO (2017) legislations. In the analysis of the collected tissues, a high concentration of Cd was noticed, being this the only element in the analysis that exceeded the limits of 0.05 μg.g-1 established by the legislation. The highest concentration of this metal was found in the livers of tucunarés, with mean concentration values and standard deviation of 0.071±0.014 μg.g-1. The fish C. pinima and the waters of the Araguari River presented metal contents considered unsafe for aquatic biota and for the consumption of riverside communities, since they exceeded the maximum allowable concentration limits