Current emission vs. legacy organic pollutants: How the eco exposome of caged fish reflects external exposure

The exposome represents the totality of chemicals present in an organism’s tissues. To understand how external exposure, originating from the contamination of water and sediment, relates to the internal exposure of fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas, FHM), a model small fish species, we conducted a 21-d caging study at four field sites in the Great Lakes with different pollution loads and patterns. We determined the FHM’s body burden, total water concentrations and freely dissolved concentrations in sediment pore water of 456 organic micropollutants. Up to 123 micropollutants were detected in water, 165 in sediment and 153 in FHM. Chemical concentrations at the different study sites varied largely, with one site impacted by a municipal wastewater treatment plant having the highest overall concentrations, with a prevalence of personal care and household products, pharmaceuticals and pesticides. The other sites, associated with past industrial inputs, were characterized by elevated concentrations of legacy contaminants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. We observed a moderate agreement of contamination patterns in fish compared to chemicals found in the sediment, while the water phase was dominated by more hydrophilic chemicals often not present in the fish. The study shows the degree of predictability of the exposome in fish that may be expected based on chemical concentrations in water and sediment based on equilibrium partitioning and provides evidence for the need of body burden analysis to comprehensively understand an organism’s exposure to environmental contaminants. This dataset is not publicly accessible because: The data is not EPA-generated. It can be accessed through the following means: Data will be made publicly available upon publication. Format: The data are in an Excel spreadsheet and included the following parameters: 
S1: Site description
S2: Substances
S2a: target substances and additional information
S2b: list of used internal standards
S2c: substances and additional information
S3: Water data
S3a: measured concentrations of the different time points and the site averages plus standard-deviations
S3b: average plus standard-deviations of concentrations at the different time point
S4:  Sediment data
S4a: sediment wet weights
S4b: sediment dry weights
S4c: total organic carbon (TOC) of the sediment
S4d: concentration in sediment from all sites; application of stability factor
S4e: reduced dataset of the concentrations with average values and standard deviation
S5: Fathead Minnow data
S5a: wet weights
S5b: wet weight normalized concentrations (ng/gww) for each clean-up method
S5c: aggregated dataset using the concentrations of the method with better recovery
S5d: MAX values of cFHM at each site
S5d: lipid content of FHM samples
S5e: FHM concentrations normalized to lipid content (see S5d); PSA and C18 combined depending on recoveries and MDLs
S5f: MAX values of c_FHM (ww) at each site
S6: Fish food data
S6a: wet weight and lipid content of brine shrimp and trout chow
S6b: wet weight-normalized concentrations
S7: Literature data for KOC data from Niu et al. and EPISuite
S8: Data used for venn diagram and violin plot
S9: Data used for systematic comparison of occurrences in FHM, water, and sediment
S9a: Number of pattern-detects (A, E); systematic comparison of the occurrence of target substances
S9b: Detected compound classes
S9c: Number of overlaps
S9d: Agreement occurrence in FHM
S9e: Number of pattern-detects
S10: Calculated BCF and BSAF
S11: Values of the predicted (expected) concentrations in FHM derived from the concentrations in water, sediment, and the predicted BCF and BSAF values. 

This dataset is associated with the following publication:
Dann, J., G. Ankley, B. Blackwell, B. Escher, A. Jahnke, K. Jensen, C. Jenson, M. Krauss, S. Scholz, T. Wernicke, and W. Brack. Current emission vs. legacy organic pollutants: Assessing the extent to which the eco-exposome of caged fish reflects external exposure.   ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, USA, 383: 126808, (2025).

Tags: aquatic-ecosystems, contamination-patterns, eco-exposome, fish, micropollutants, target-screening
Organization: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency