Identifying major pesticides affecting bivalve species exposed to agricultural pollution using multi-biomarker and multivariate methods

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to identify major pesticides that may cause detrimental effects in bivalve species affected by agricultural pollution. Investigations were carried out using freshwater clams (Corbicula fluminea) transplanted in the main drainage channels that collect the effluents coming from agriculture fields in the Ebro Delta (NE Spain) during the main growing season of rice (from May to August). Environmental hazards were assessed by measuring simultaneous up 46 contaminant levels and 9 biomarker responses. Measured biological responses showed marked differences across sites and months. Antioxidant and esterase enzyme responses were in most cases inhibited. Lipid peroxidation levels increased steadily from May in upstream stations to August in drainage channels. Principal Component (PCA) and Partial Least Squares to Latent Structure regression (PLS) analyses allowed the identification of endosulfan, propanil, and phenylureas as being the chemical contaminants causing the most adverse effects in the studied species.

The assessment of source attribution of soil pollution in a typical e-waste recycling town and its surrounding regions using the combined organic and inorganic dataset

“…2, the EFs of the mineral elements followed the descending order: Hg (4.16) > Sb (4.11) > Au (3.81) > Ag Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett's tests of sphericity were applied to verify the dependability of PCA. The results of KMO and Bartlett's tests were 0.77 and 1169.58 (df = 210, P < 0.01), respectively, proving this multivariate factor analysis can reliably reduce the dimensionality of the dataset (Damasio et al 2010). After Kaiser's VARIMAX orthogonal rotation, principal components (PCs) with eigenvalues greater than one were retained to identify and quantify the major sources.…”

Species-specific responsiveness of four enzymes to endosulfan and predation risk questions their usefulness as general biomarkers

“…We therefore argue that the net response in antioxidant defense, both for the single as for the combined exposure to both stressors, will be driven by the balance between lowered energetic content and increased need for antioxidant defense, hence allocation of energy to costly increase of antioxidant enzymes. This may explain why for both stressors decreased levels (pesticide stress: Chang et al 2006;Huang et al 2008;Damasio et al 2010;predation risk: Slos and Stoks 2008) as well as increased levels (pesticide: Kumar et al 2008;Jin et al 2010, predation risk: Slos et al 2009a) of antioxidant enzymes have been documented. In line with this, some studies demonstrated that antioxidant defense under exposure to endosulfan may not be sufficient to prevent oxidative damage to lipids (e.g., Damasio et al 2010).…”

Human Pressure and Its Effects on Water Quality and Biota in the Llobregat River

“…Biomarkers can be measured in field collected organisms and then may inform us about the physiological state of organisms inhabiting those sites [19,23]. If biomarkers are combined with the analysis of pollutants, it is possible to correlate specific effects with putative stressors [19,21]. Nevertheless, one of the greatest advantages of the above-mentioned tools is its combination.…”

“…Also, priority and emergent pollutants have been monitored [17,18], and new tools for ecosystem risk assessment have been implemented [11,19]. Recent studies have analyzed the effect of certain emerging contaminants on biological communities in the Llobregat River [20,21].…”