The Benthic Trophic Corner Stone Compartment in POPs Transfer from Abiotic Environment to Higher Trophic Levels—Trichoptera and Ephemeroptera Pre-Alert Indicator Role

Abstract

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been at the forefront of environmental contamination research even before their ban in 2001 at the Stockholm Convention. Their relation to different compartments of the environment (biotic and abiotic) has been thoroughly investigated. This article aims to identify whether the benthos could represent a reliable indicator of environmental contamination with POPs and to highlight its potential transfer role between abiotic and upper trophic compartments—benthos feeders. In this regard, we determined that the Ephemeroptera samples have higher concentrations (p < 0.05) of ΣPCB, ΣHCH, and ΣDDT than sediment samples while Trichoptera samples have higher concentrations (p < 0.05) only in the case of ΣPCB and ΣDDT. This, along with the fact that the frequency of detection for POPs is similar between the sample types (sediments, Trichoptera, and Ephemeroptera), makes the benthos samples valuable indicators of contamination with sediment samples working as complementary information about how recent the contamination is.