Butyltin compounds in seawater, sediments and organisms inside Jeju Harbor of Jeju Island, Korea, were quantitatively determined to assess the extent of contamination and to evaluate the bioaccumulation in Thais clavigera (gastropod), Liolophura japonica and Cellana nigrolineata. In addition, imposex in T. clavigera was used to assess the sublethal effect of tributyltin compounds and its usage as a specific biomarker for these compounds was also studied. The main species in seawater was tributyltin (TBT) in March and June, monobutyltin (MBT) in August, but in sediments and organisms it was dibutyltin (DBT) and TBT, respectively, irrespective of survey time. TBT, the most toxic to aquatic organisms among BTs, was found at concentrations which were sufficient to have a serous effect on the sensitive organisms upon chronic exposure. The high correlations (r>0.7) between BTs indicated that DBT and MBT were mainly degraded from TBT based on antifouling paints and their sources were negligible. The sedimentary organic matters have little influence on the distribution of BTs in marine environment and the lipid content in T. clavigera showed a significant correlation with TBT concentrations. Measurement of imposex T. clavigera was expected to be a very helpful tool for preliminary survey of BTs prior to trace analysis of those.

Abstract
 1. Introduction
 2. Materials and Methods
  2.1. Chemicals
  2.2. Collection of samples
  2.3. Determination of BTs
 3. Results and Discussion
 4. Conclusions
 References

• Sang-Kyu Kam(Department of Chemical Engineering, Pukyong National University)
• Eun-Il Cho(Department of Chemical Engineering, Pukyong National University)
• Min-Gyu Lee(Department of Environmental Engineering, Jeju National University) Corresponding Author