Q. In Bioaccumulation the concentration of the chemical in one particular body increases with time.
In Biomagnification the concentration of the chemical increases as one moves up towards the food chain. This referred to as tissue concentration. My question is:
Are these two increase in concentrations different or of the same type ?
If different then is it due to the fact that the concentration increase in case of Biomagnification is in the tissue and in case of Bioaccumulation it is in some other place.
A. In either case, you must measure the concentration in a tissue (or the put the animal in a blender and measure the concentration in whole animal). In Bioaccumulation, you could be talking about one animal (of one species, in one trophic level) having tissue concentrations that increase over time, because the chemical is being ingested faster than it is being eliminated. You could also mean (you have to determine from the context what the author means) the concentration is increasing in each trophic level. The concentration is higher in predators than in prey. This later use of the term is synonymous with biomagnification.