Acknowledgements

present this kind of concern. For Zn, for example, just the consumption of 2.5 kg of Genidens genidens muscle tissue would approach the limit. From all the metals evaluated, Cd is of least concern, since the World Health Organization [73] has determined the provisional tolerable weekly Cd intake of 25 μg kg<sup>1</sup> body weight, which means an intake of over a thousand pounds of fish to exceed this limit.

The RfD values and estimated EDI (mg/kg bw/day) and THQ (mg/kg bw/week) by the study area population

through the consumption of captured fish from the Santos-Cubatão estuarine system.

Cd Cu Fe Ni Pb Zn

RfDs 0.001 0.04 0.7 0.02 0.002 0.3

Applied Geochemistry with Case Studies on Geological Formations, Exploration Techniques…

EDI 5.54 <sup>10</sup><sup>7</sup> 2.1 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 2.8 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 2.0 <sup>10</sup><sup>5</sup> 4.2 <sup>10</sup><sup>6</sup> <sup>6</sup> <sup>10</sup><sup>6</sup> THQ 5.50 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 5.33 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 4.00 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.03 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.06 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 2.03 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup>

EDI 1.11 <sup>10</sup><sup>6</sup> 4.88 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 1.48 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup> 3.24 <sup>10</sup><sup>5</sup> 3.75 <sup>10</sup><sup>5</sup> 3.81 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup> THQ 1.11 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.22 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup> 2.12 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup> 1.62 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 9.36 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.27 <sup>10</sup><sup>1</sup>

EDI 1.52 <sup>10</sup><sup>6</sup> 3.17 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 3.82 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 2.25 <sup>10</sup><sup>5</sup> 5.34 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 1.08 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup> THQ 1.52 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 7.92 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 5.45 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.12 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.34 <sup>10</sup><sup>1</sup> 3.61 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup>

EDI 5.53 <sup>10</sup><sup>7</sup> 3.31 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 8.56 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.80 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 3.85 <sup>10</sup><sup>5</sup> 4.50 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> THQ 5.53 <sup>10</sup><sup>4</sup> 8.28 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.22 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup> 9.01 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 9.62 <sup>10</sup><sup>3</sup> 1.50 <sup>10</sup><sup>2</sup>

Centropomus parallelus (number of samples = 21)

Genidens genidens (number of samples = 8)

Diapterus rhombeus (number of samples = 7)

Mugil liza (number of samples = 8)

Table 6.

The estimated daily intake (EDI) were higher for Zn and Fe, followed by Cu for

Metal levels in fish liver tissue should be a concern when it comes to marine conservation. In organisms that have aerial respiration (e.g., seabirds and marine mammals), the intake of contaminants is mainly made by food, and biomagnification is usually observed [74]. Although the levels that can cause bad effects to marine organisms vary with the species and metals, the average consumption of 1 kg of Mugil liza or Genidens genidens studied here, for instance, can expose the

all analyzed species (Table 6), presenting a maximum value of 0.038 mg/kg bw/day for G. genidens. The lowest EDI values were reported for Cd followed by Pb and Ni. Using those EDI values and taking in account the USEPA RfDs, the THQ for each metal in each fish population was calculated, and it is shown in Table 6. The highest value of THQ was observed for Pb at the D. rhombeus population (0.134), while the lowest was observed for Cd at the C. parallelus population (0.0005). None of the metals individually exceeded the hazard quotient threshold of 1, implying that the level of daily intake of each examined metal for Brazilian population was lower than that of respective dose. The same happened for TTHO (varying from 0.03 for C. parallelus to 0.18 for D. rhombeus) that evaluate the cumulative health risks, reinforcing no potential significant health risks. Those observations suggest that the levels of human exposure to the analyzed metals should not cause any deleterious (noncarcinogenic) effect from the intake of fish species from study

area (Table 6).

122

3.5 Marine conservation risk assessment

We thank the São Paulo State Research Funding Agency—FAPESP (process number 08-11511-8) and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (process 432922/2016-4)—for financial support. Bosco-Santos thanks the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development—CNPq —for granting her with a master fellowship.
