Environmental pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs, heavy metals, and organochlorine pesticides are a global threat to food safety. In particular, the aquatic biota can bioaccumulate many of these contaminants potentially making seafood of concern for chronic exposure to humans. The main objective was to evaluate trends of contaminant levels in Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon in light of the derived tolerable intakes. Through an EU-instigated surveillance programme, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA) has between 1999 and 2011 collected more than 2300 samples of Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) for contaminant analyses. The fillets of these fish were homogenised and analysed for dioxins, PCBs, heavy metals and organochlorine pesticides. The levels of the contaminants mercury, arsenic, dioxins, dioxin-like PCBs and DDT in Norwegian farmed salmon fillet have decreased during our period of analyses. The levels of cadmium, lead and several organochlorine pesticides were too close to the limit of quantification to calculate time trends. For PCB6 and quantifiable amounts of pesticides, except DDT, stable levels were observed. The contaminant levels in Norwegian farmed salmon have generally decreased between 1999 and 2011. Excluding other dietary sources, the levels of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in 2011 allowed consumption of up to 1.3kg salmon per week to reach the tolerable weekly intake. The group of contaminants which was the limiting factor for safe consumption of Norwegian farmed salmon, based on currently established TWI values, is the sum of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs.

Sexual maturation and spawning was followed in one and two year old rope cultured mussels (Mytilus edulis) from April to December. Development of gonad and storage tissue was followed using descriptive categories from histology, and development of total soft tissue was followed using meat yield and condition index.Both age groups were mature both during spring and autumn and had similar patterns of spawning and maturation. April and May were characterized by scattered spawning activity and accumulation of storage reserves at the same time, resulting in relative constant condition indices during this period. This was followed by ripening of the gonads and an increase in condition index that culminated in a spawning in late June. Parts of the population then entered a resting phase, while a part of the population underwent new maturation towards an autumn spawning in September. In December all the mussels had started the winter maturation.Condition index and meat yield were higher throughout the season in the one year old mussels. This was probably due to the sum of several factors, including differences in specific feeding rates and biomass density, rather than spawning.The present study is the first to compare the reproductive patterns over time of one and two year old mussels with reliable age determination, and provide information that there are no obvious differences in neither timing of gonad development nor spawning patterns between the age-classes.