Input of organic matter in Brunei Bay, East Malaysia, as indicated by sedimentary steroids and multivariate statistics

Pang SY 1 , Tay JH 2 , Suratman S 3 , Simoneit BRT 4 , Mohd Tahir N 5

Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia. Electronic address: p.sweeyun@gmail.com
  • 2 Faculty of Industrial Sciences and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Lebuhraya Tun Razak, 26300 Gambang, Malaysia
  • 3 Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
  • 5 Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia; Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia. Electronic address: hayati@umt.edu.my
Mar Pollut Bull, 2020 Jul;156:111269.
PMID: 32510409 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111269

Abstract

Brunei Bay is one of the most important marine environments of East Malaysia (South China Sea), covering many productive ecosystems with activities including fisheries, tourism, and main shipping lanes for petroleum transfers. Evaluation of the sources and distributions of steroids in the surface sedimentary organic matter was carried out by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The concentrations of the total identified sterols (TIS) ranged between 0.81 and 12.69 μg g-1 dry weight, and the total sterones were between 0.11 and 5.66 μg g-1 dry weight. The coprostanol level was comparatively low (<0.10 μg g-1), and the multi-biomarker proxies indicated that the region did not exhibit significant contamination from sewage effluents. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed the coastal environment of the study area was dominated by allochthonous (mainly terrestrial) organic matter input.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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