Uso de marcadores moleculares na avaliação da contaminação em estuário do Nordeste Brasileiro: caso do sistema estuarino Ubatuba/Timonha

Abstract

Sediments are an important component of the marine environment, once they constitute a habitat, a trophic resource and a spawning place for many organisms. Unfortunately, the sediments from coastal areas are deeply degraded by anthropogenic activities. This work was developed at the Ubatuba/Timonha estuarine system, an area located at the border of the Ceará and Piauí states and which is inserted within an environmental preservation area: Parnaíba delta. This work aims to do an evaluation of the contamination on this environment using the determination of sterols and endocrine disrupters in sediments by gas chromatography coupled to a mass spectrometer (GC-MS). As the research’s result, the sum of Des varied from 67.65 to 175.46 ng/g. Among the synthetics, the MeEE2 and 17α-EE2 stood out for their maximum concentrations of 301.09 (P4) and 321.71 (P8), respectively. The sum of sterols varied from 3.85 (P1) - 351.62 ng/g (P3). Considering Coprostanol, fecal sterol, it presented concentrations varying from ND (P1) – 71.72 (P6) ng/g with points P2, P4, P5 and P8 classified as contaminated according to the authors used as reference. With the principal component analysis, the contribution of domestic effluents was observed.