Snails as Biomonitors of Oil-Spill and Bioremediation Strategies

Abstract

Aquatic and pulmonate snails were evaluated for their suitability as biomonitors of habitat recovery following an experimental oil spill in a freshwater marshland. The mystery snail, Viviparus georgianus, and the mimic pondsnail, Pseudosuccinea columella, were used as sediment quality biomonitors for a controlled oil-spill experiment at a wetland site along the St. Lawrence River (Ste. Croix, Quebec) to assess the impacts of crude oil, rates of natural recovery, and the efficacy of bioremediation treatments to enhance the bacterial degradation of residual oil in the sediments. Sediments from control sites and oiled sites with or without the application of fertilizers as bioremediation strategies, were evaluated both in situ and under controlled laboratory conditions at various time intervals. Snail survival, growth, and histopathological changes were monitored. While V. georgianus proved to be good biomonitors, P. columella appeared unaffected by the treatments. The differing sensitivity may depend on the gastropods' feeding habits. V. georgianus being a detritivore assimilated contaminants from the sediments, while P. columella, being an herbivore, did not directly assimilate contaminants. Nevertheless, snails show potential as important and ideal "tools" for testing environmental conditions because of their abundance, ease of collection, wide distribution, and relatively sedentary nature.

Salty fertile lakes: how salinization and eutrophication alter the structure of freshwater communities

“…Banded mystery snails are primarily detritivores, whereas pond snails are primarily periphyton grazers (Lee et al. , Evans‐White and Lamberti ). As a result, increased nutrients that cause increased periphyton productivity should favor an increased production of pond snails but have weaker effects on banded mystery snails.…”

“…Moreover, as detritivores, banded mystery snails assimilate contaminants from the sediments (which can have higher salt concentrations since saltier water has a higher density), while pond snails are grazers and would be less likely to directly assimilate contaminants from the sediments (Lee et al. , Evans‐White and Lamberti ). As a result, even if banded mystery snails and pond snail have a similar tolerance to salt, banded mystery snails may be exposed to higher levels of salt because of their habit of feeding on the detritus of sediments.…”

“…Banded mystery snails are more commonly found in mesotrophic and eutrophic lakes and ponds (Browne 1978, Lee et al 2002, although they also can be abundant in some oligotrophic lakes (e.g., Lake George, New York, USA). We therefore expected an increase in banded mystery snails with nutrient addition.…”

Invasive plant ecosystem engineer facilitates community and trophic level alteration for brackish marsh invertebrates

“…Order and trophic mode were assigned to each morphospecies using the follow resources: Smith (1928), McBrayer and Reichle (1971), Fauchald (1977), Steneck and Watling (1982), Rushton and Hassall (1983), Jervis and Kidd (1986), Stribling and Seymour (1988), Penry and Jumars (1990), Hunt (1991), Hiol et al (1994), Ruppert and Barnes (1994), Lewis et al (1998), Lee et al (2002) Robinson et al (2011). Samples containing unidentifiable specimens were not used in this analysis.…”

Global diversity of gastropods (Gastropoda; Mollusca) in freshwater

“…Their low vagility, adequate size, often large population numbers and the ease of collection and identification of many species render them a useful and practical tool in biomonitoring programs (Chirombe et al 1997;Langston et al, 1998;Lee et al, 2002). For example, freshwater gastropods are promising tools as pollution indicators through assessments of molluscan community composition and/or biological monitoring programs that rate water quality and status of aquatic biotopes based on invertebrate assemblages.…”