Fig. 3.

Possible dechlorination patterns of the mostly depleted hexa- and penta-chlorinated congeners leading to the most prominently accumulated tetra- and tri-chlorinated congeners, in sediment D (panel a) and sediment C (panel b) cultures. Congeners (either eluting alone or co-eluting with others) of the original Aroclor 1254 mixture that were more extensively dechlorinated are underlined, whereas congeners (either eluting alone or co-eluting with others) that accumulated in higher amounts (more than 200 µmol kg⁻¹ after 31 weeks of incubation) are in bold characters. For each dechlorination step, the following information is reported in parenthesis: position of the removed chlorine (m: meta, p: para), presence of flanking chlorines (DF double flanked, SF single flanked, UF unflanked) and chlorophenyl ring dechlorinated (removed chlorine underlined)