Riparian spiders: Sentinels of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin and dibenzofuran-contaminated sediment

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin and polychlorinated dibenzofuran (PCDD/F) are persistent, toxic, and bioaccumulative. Currently, PCDD/F monitoring programs primarily use fish and birds with potentially large home ranges to monitor temporal trends over broad spatial scales; sentinel organisms that provide targeted sediment contaminant information across small geographic areas have yet to be developed. Riparian orb-weaving spiders, which typically have small home ranges and consume primarily adult aquatic insects, are potential PCDD/F sentinels. Recent studies have demonstrated that spider tissue concentrations indicate the source and magnitude of dioxin-like chlorinated compounds in contaminated sediments, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Our aim in the present study was to assess the utility of riparian spiders as sentinels for PCDD/F-contaminated sediments. We measured PCDD/F (total [Σ] and homologs) in surface sediments and spiders collected from three sites within the St. Louis River basin (Minnesota and Wisconsin, USA). We then compared (1) patterns in ΣPCDD/F concentrations between sediment and spiders, (2) the distribution of homologs within sediments and spiders when pooled across sites, and (3) the relationship between sediment and spider concentrations of PCDD/F homologs across 13 stations sampled across the three sites. The ΣPCDD/F concentrations in sediment (mean ± standard error 286 591 ± 97 614 pg/g) were significantly higher than those in riparian spiders (2463 ± 977 pg/g, p