Abstract
Due to their formerly wide-spread use and their slow degradability chlorinated hydrocarbons today are ubiquitous in the environment and tend to accumulate in marine biota. Many of these substances, being highly toxic (pesticides), have long since been suspected of exerting detrimental effects on metabolism and reproductive capacity of highly contaminated individuals. In the present contribution it could be shown that levels of PCBs found in ovaries of three marine teleosts correlate with a loss of reproductive capacity in afflicted specimens. Male gonads did contain lower concentrations of chlorinated hydrocarbons than did ovaries; the variability in hatching success therefore seems to depend on the contamination of ovaries. Effective PCB ovary burdens were in the range of 120–180 ng/g tissue wet weight. Pesticides such as DDE and Dieldrin seem to impair reproductive success too, measured as the emergence of viable larvae from eggs of contaminated parent fish.
