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biological accumulation

noun

  1. the accumulation within living organisms of toxic substances occurring in the environment.



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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The biological accumulation of toxins in food animals is likely to pose a long-term risk to human health.

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When To Use

What does biological accumulation mean?

Biological accumulation is the continuous buildup of foreign substances, such as pesticides or toxic chemicals, within an organism.Biological is used to describe things that involve living organisms. Accumulation means a continuous growing or collecting. The term bioaccumulation is short for biological accumulation.Biological accumulation is a scientific term that describes the buildup of (often harmful) substances in living organisms, such as animals and plants. The term is especially common in discussions of marine biology because aquatic life is particularly vulnerable to contamination from pesticides like DDT and toxins, such as mercury (when these things get into the water, they inevitably get into the animals and other organisms that live in the water).This poses problems for individual organisms, but it’s also a problem for entire ecosystems. When the biological accumulation in each organism is compounded (added together, or magnified), this is called biological magnification (or biomagnification). Biomagnification means that biological accumulation can get worse for animals higher up in the food chain: the amount of toxic substances (such as mercury or pesticides) is greater in the bodies of organisms (including humans) that consume other organisms.

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