Bioaccumulation is the process by which living organisms take up and retain chemical substances, particularly persistent contaminants, from their environment at a rate that exceeds their elimination, leading to a progressive increase in tissue concentrations over time. Uptake occurs through multiple routes, includin…
Bioaccumulation is the process by which living organisms take up and retain chemical substances, particularly persistent contaminants, from their environment at a rate that exceeds their elimination, leading to a progressive increase in tissue concentrations over time. Uptake occurs through multiple routes, including absorption from water, ingestion of contaminated food, and contact with sediment or soil, and the extent of accumulation depends on the chemical's persistence, lipophilicity, and bioavailability as well as the physiology of the organism. Bioaccumulation is central to the environmental fate of pollutants such as heavy metals and persistent organic compounds, which can concentrate in the tissues of aquatic and terrestrial organisms; studies of heavy-metal contamination in water and vegetation, of organic pollutants in fish muscle, and of contaminant uptake in freshwater bivalves illustrate how organisms acquire and store these substances. When accumulated contaminants are transferred and magnified along successive levels of a food web, the related phenomenon of biomagnification raises concentrations in higher-order consumers, including humans, posing significant health risks. Because certain organisms reliably reflect ambient contamination, they are employed as bioindicators to monitor pollution, while processes such as biosorption by microorganisms and uptake by plants are studied for remediation. Understanding bioaccumulation is therefore essential to ecotoxicology, environmental monitoring, and risk assessment, informing the evaluation of contaminant exposure and the protection of ecosystems and human health.
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The 8 articles above have been cited 48 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
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