![]() ![]() The three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus, Linné), a small teleost fish which often feeds primarily on benthic invertebrates, served as a model predator. ![]() The two-step food chain included the sediment-dwelling freshwater oligochaete Tubifex tubifex (Müller) as a representative species of benthic infauna. For measurement of biomagnification, a sediment based food chain was developed and established in the laboratory. Some tubificid species - or other benthic annelids - serve as food for benthivorous fish, which thereby ingest the sediment-borne chemicals and may accumulate contaminant concentrations far higher than from water exposure only, and transfer them to organisms of higher trophic levels. Sediment-associated chemicals can be accumulated by endobenthic, sediment-ingesting invertebrates. ![]() Sediments contaminated with poorly water-soluble organic chemicals pose a risk to aquatic food chains. ![]()
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