Risk assessment of pollutants along food chain of Caretta caretta

Various researches have focused on the monitoring of contaminants in tissues of Caretta caretta, using stranded dead animals. Scarce are studies reporting about not only pollutants levels, but also on possible contribution of various diet components in contaminants, i.e. heavy metals, sea turtles body burden. Present work evaluates accumulation of toxic heavy metals (As, Pb, Cd, Hg) along trophic chain of Caretta caretta of Northern Adriatic Sea, trying to define which could be main diet components contributing to toxicant body burden for each of the metal considered. The use of Scafarca inaequivalvis, a filter feeling mollusk not included in normal sea turtles diet, but widely distributed in Northen Adriatic Sea, will allow the definition of environmental contamination levels, i.e. of sediments, of the area studied. The research is focused at better define heavy metals transfer dynamics from environment to highly endangered species like sea turtles, as well as to an assessment of possible toxic effects occurring in studied animals, including non acute, highly relevant effects, like immunosupression.