FLUCTUATING ASYMMETRY IN ISOPODS AS INDICATOR OF HAZARDOUS METALS IN URBAN AREA

有害金属是全世界重工业化城市地区的一个重大人类健康问题。不幸的是，人类疾病往往只有在长时间接触后才会出现，而延迟检测在经济上和生活质量方面都是昂贵的。此外。直接监测人体内的金属（例如，通过血液样本）在后勤上很复杂，而且具有侵入性，因此难以确定面临风险的人群。“哨兵”动物物种作为污染监测的有吸引力的替代品最近受到了相当大的关注。作为一个监测器，“哨兵”必须表现出生物体健康和环境质量之间的可预测的关系。健康决定因素应该是可重复的，易于测量。轻微偏离双侧对称（例如，波动的不对称性）提供了这样的测量。在实验室和野外对各种压力源的研究中，生物体中对称性的平均偏差随着压力水平的增加而增加（即，完全双侧对称的发展被破坏）。陆生等足类动物的波动不对称性为监测城市环境中的有害金属提供了一个新的和潜在的广泛适用的系统。这些食蟹甲壳类动物在世界各地的城市和农村地区都很丰富，很容易通过主动或被动采样收集，并积累高水平的金属（包括铜，锌，镉和铅），它们终生保留。一项对等足类Armadillidium vulgare左右眼复眼“晶状体”（ommatidia）数量的初步研究显示，在芝加哥南部金属污染区收集的等足类动物中，与工业化程度较低的等足类动物相比，小眼数量的不对称性明显更大。平均不对称性与动物中铍、铬、锰、铁、铜、锌、镉、钡、汞和铅的总浓度呈近乎线性的剂量-反应关系（r2=0.89）。这项建议是评估波动不对称的等足类动物作为衡量危险金属污染的六个城市社区在卡卢梅湖区南芝加哥，伊利诺伊州。该地区的居民区被许多金属污染源所包围，大多数都是在金属污染的填充材料上建造的，包括：钢铁工业和工业废物，煤/焦炭灰和污泥。如果成功，我们的方法将被证明是非常有价值的，作为一个方便，廉价和广泛适用的早期预警系统，用于识别有毒金属对人类健康的长期威胁。

Hazardous metals are a significant human health problem in heavily industrialized urban areas worldwide. Unfortunately, human pathologies often appear only after prolonged exposure, and delayed detection is costly both financially and in terms of quality of life. Furthermore. direct monitoring of metals in humans (e.g., through blood samples) is logistically complex and intrusive, making it difficult to identify populations at risk. 'Sentinel' animal species have received considerable recent attention as attractive alternatives for pollution monitoring. For use as a monitor, 'sentinels' must exhibit a predictable relationship between organism health and environmental quality. The health determinant should be reproducible and easily measured. Subtle deviations from bilateral symmetry (e.g., fluctuating asymmetries) offer such a measure. In both laboratory and field studies of a wide range of stressors, the average deviation from symmetry in organisms increases with increased stress levels (i.e., the development of perfect bilateral symmetry is disrupted). Fluctuating asymmetry in terrestrial isopods offers a new and potentially widely-applicable system for monitoring hazardous metals in urban environments. These detritivorous crustaceans are abundant in urban and rural areas worldwide, are easily collected by active or passive sampling, and accumulate high levels of metals (including copper, zinc, cadmium, and lead), which they retain for their entire lives. A pilot study of the numbers of compound eye 'lenses' (ommatidia) in the right and left eyes of the isopod Armadillidium vulgare revealed that asymmetry in ommatidia number was significantly greater in isopods collected from metal-contaminated sites in south Chicago, compared to isopods in less industrialized areas. Average asymmetry increased in a nearly linear dose- response relationship with total concentrations of beryllium, chromium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, cadmium, barium, mercury, and lead in the animals (r2=0.89). This proposal is to evaluate fluctuation asymmetry in isopods as a measure of hazardous metal contamination in six urban neighborhoods in the Lake Calumet district of south Chicago, Illinois. Residential areas in this region are surrounded by numerous sources of metal pollution, and the majority are constructed atop metal-contaminated fill material, including: steel industry and industrial waste, coal/coke ash, and sludge. If successful, our approach could prove extremely valuable as a convenient, inexpensive and widely-applicable early warning system for identifying long-term threats to human health from toxic metals.