ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview for organotins, with some basic information on their environmental chemistry, occurrence, and bioaccumulation. It discusses the available data on tissue-residue toxicity for aquatic biota. The chapter focuses the occurrence of organotin compounds in aquatic organisms and the associated toxic responses. The enforced International Maritime Organization ban may produce reductions in water concentrations, however, due to the extensive half life of Tributyltin (and likely other organotins) in sediment; the compounds will likely continue to be a concern for many years. As a result of the observations, dose additivity would be a reasonable hypothesis for two compounds, which means their concentrations should be added together when assessing the toxicological impacts. Organotin compounds are a combination of organic moiety and elemental tin. All organotin compounds contain a metal–carbon bond, and in many cases the organic moiety is an alkyl group or simple ring structure.
