{"id":89944,"date":"2026-06-26T13:10:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:10:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:22:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T11:22:49","slug":"0198cc7e6bac-385efd84-14a1-47b3-8cb2-7e8012777150","status":"publish","type":"nva_publication","link":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/publications\/0198cc7e6bac-385efd84-14a1-47b3-8cb2-7e8012777150\/","title":{"rendered":"Factors affecting bioaccumulation of cyclic volatile methyl siloxanes in a sub-arctic bentho-pelagic food web"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes (cVMS) are used in personal care products and are emitted to aquatic<br \/>\nenvironments through wastewater effluents. Due to the high hydrophobicity of cVMS, sediments are<br \/>\nexpected to be an important source for exposure in benthic and bentho-pelagic food webs. However, details<br \/>\nof exposure pathways have yet to be fully understood. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the<br \/>\nrole of sediments in the bioaccumulation of cVMS in Nordic environments, using a north-Norwegian lake<br \/>\n(Lake Storvannet) as a case-study. Concentrations of cVMS were measured in benthos (chironomid larvae<br \/>\nand the pea clam Pisidium sp.) and fish (three-spined sticklebacks [Gasterosteus aculeatus], Arctic char<br \/>\n[Salvelinus alpinus], and brown trout [Salmo trutta]) from the lake. Existing measurements of<br \/>\npolychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs 101, 118, 138, 153, 180) were used to evaluate a new bentho-pelagic<br \/>\nversion of the bioaccumulation model ACC-HUMAN (including a benthic filter feeder and a benthic<br \/>\npredator\/deposit feeder). The model predictions of PCB concentrations in char and trout were in better<br \/>\nagreement with measurements (predictions were within a factor of 4 to measured concentrations) compared<br \/>\nto predictions with the pelagic-only model (factor of 8 between predictions and measurements). Predictions<br \/>\nimproved most for char, which feed mainly on benthos in this lake. This suggests that the bentho-pelagic<br \/>\nmodel is a better representation of the Storvannet ecosystem than the pelagic-only model. The model was<br \/>\nnext applied to evaluate the fate of cVMS in the Storvannet food web. Decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5)<br \/>\nwas the dominant cVMS congener in the lake, with measured concentrations of 2.0 \u00b1 0.04, 17.8 \u00b1 0.7, 3.2 \u00b1<br \/>\n2.3, 3.8 \u00b1 2.8, and 0.8 \u00b1 0.6 \u03bcg\/g lipid in chironomid larvae, Pisidium sp., sticklebacks, char, and trout,<br \/>\nrespectively. Concentrations were lower, and sometimes below limits of quantification, for<br \/>\noctamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and dodecamethylcyclohexasiloxane (D6). Predicted cVMS<br \/>\nconcentrations in benthos were underestimated compared to measurements (ratio of 0.04 to 0.4 between<br \/>\npredictions and measurements), while predicted cVMS concentrations in fish were in good agreement with<br \/>\nmeasurements (ratio of 0.5 to 2.5). Model predictions were highly sensitive to the partition coefficients<br \/>\nbetween organic carbon and water (KOC) and its temperature dependence. This is because the model predicts<br \/>\nbenthic organisms to be the main source of cVMS for fish, and KOC controls bioavailability of cVMS for<br \/>\nbenthos in the model. The model furthermore predicted considerable losses of cVMS through ventilation for<br \/>\nfish, resulting from higher fugacity in the benthic-feeding fish than in lake water. As a result, model<br \/>\npredictions were relatively insensitive to the biotransformation rate constants in fish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_id":"","_status":"PUBLISHED","_sync_date":"2026-06-26 13:10:39","footnotes":""},"nva_tax_category":[1046],"class_list":["post-89944","nva_publication","type-nva_publication","status-publish","hentry","nva_tax_category-lecture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication\/89944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/nva_publication"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication\/89944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89945,"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication\/89944\/revisions\/89945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"nva_tax_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_tax_category?post=89944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}