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118 L. Campanella et al. / Environmental Pollution 111 (2001) 117±126
identi®cation which, especially for the ®rst three organ- of the organisms collected at the `clean' stations may
isms, can also be carried out by inexperienced personnel. provide useful background levels to which to refer for
intraspeci®c comparison within the Mediterranean area.
Among these species, only Posidonia oceanica has
been studied by some authors with the aim of assessing In order to gain a more complete picture of both the
its usefulness as trace metal biomonitor (Maserti et al., environmental conditions of the area under study and
1988; Sanchiz et al., 1990; Costantini et al., 1991; Tar- the bioaccumulation patterns of the selected organisms,
amelli et al., 1991; Catsiki and Panayotidis, 1993; Catsiki soluble and total metal concentrations were determined
et al., 1994; Malea et al., 1994; Warnau et al., 1995, 1996; in coastal water samples collected at the experimental
Schlacher-Hoenlinger and Schlacher, 1998a). This ende- stations. Occasional analysis of seawater sampled at one
mic seagrass holds a central position in the ecology of the site cannot be regarded as a reliable measure of mean
Mediterranean Sea and contributes highly to coastal contaminant concentration at that location (Phillips,
primary production. Its meadows serve as spawning 1977). Nevertheless, it provides some information when
area, hunting territory or permanent habitat for numer- widely dierent contaminant levels in various stations
ous plant and animal species (Mazzella et al., 1986). occur. Furthermore, it allows a mean level to be esti-
mated for a given area when data from various sam-
Few data are presently available on trace metal con- pling stations are averaged.
centrations in the other species selected in the present
study with reference to the Mediterranean Sea (Ozretic 2. Materials and methods
et al., 1990; Catsiki et al., 1991; Nicolaidou, 1994;
Schlacher-Hoenlinger and Schlacher, 1998b). 2.1. Sampling and sample preparation
The selected experimental area, lacking any industrial Organisms and water samples were collected in May
site and quite far away from the urbanized Sicilian 1997 at ®ve stations located along the coast of
coastline, can be considered virtually unin¯uenced by Favignana Island (3756H N: 1219H E), Sicily (Italy)
anthropogenic activities, with the exception of the local (Fig. 1). Four sites appeared to be unaected by human
harbour, which was included in the survey to test the
response of the selected species to more stressed environ-
mental conditions. The metal concentrations in the tissue
Fig. 1. Experimental area and sampling sites. 1, Punta Sottile; 2, Previto; 3, Cala Azzurra; 4, Cala Rossa; 5, Favignana harbour.
