Maternal Transfer of Flame Retardants in Sharks from the Western North Atlantic Ocean

The present work represents a comprehensive study of in utero maternal transfer of legacy and emerging flame retardants (FRs) in marine predators. We analyzed liver tissues from pregnant sharks of five viviparous species, including blacknose shark (Carcharhinus acronotus; n = 12), blacktip shark (Carcharhinus limbatus; n = 2), bonnethead (Sphyrna tiburo; n = 2), Atlantic sharpnose shark (Rhizoprionodon terraenovae; n = 2), and spinner shark (Carcharhinus brevipinna; n = 2), as well as their embryos (n = 84 in total from five species), collected from the western North Atlantic Ocean. Concentrations of frequently detected emerging FRs in adult female blacknose sharks were determined to be 6.1–83.3 ng/g lipid weight (lw) for dechlorane analogues, 2.5–29.8 ng/g lw for tetrabromo-o-chlorotoluene, and nondetection −32.6 ng/g lw for hexabromobenzene. These concentrations were 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than those of legacy polybrominated diphenyl ether flame retardants (85.7–398 ng/g lw). Similar contaminatio...