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

在世界各地高度工业化的城市地区，危险金属是一个严重的人类健康问题。不幸的是，人类的病理通常只有在长时间暴露后才会出现，延迟检测无论是在经济上还是在生活质量方面都是代价高昂的。更重要的是。直接监测人体内的金属(例如，通过血液样本)在逻辑上复杂且具有侵入性，因此很难识别处于危险中的人群。“哨兵”动物物种最近受到了相当大的关注，因为它们是污染监测的有吸引力的替代品。要用作监测器，“哨兵”必须显示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性的和易于测量的。双边对称性的细微偏差(例如，波动的不对称性)提供了这样的衡量标准。在实验室和现场对各种应激源的研究中，生物体对对称性的平均偏差随着应激水平的增加而增加(即，完美的双边对称性的发展被破坏)。陆地等足类中波动的不对称性为监测城市环境中的危险金属提供了一种新的、具有广泛应用前景的系统。这些有害的甲壳类动物在世界各地的城市和农村地区大量存在，很容易通过主动或被动采样来收集，并积累了高水平的金属(包括铜、锌、镉和铅)，它们一生都会保留下来。一项对等足目青虫右眼和左眼复眼晶状体(小眼)数量的初步研究表明，与工业化程度较低地区的等足目相比，从芝加哥南部金属污染地区采集的等足目动物的复眼晶状体(小眼)数量的不对称性明显更大。平均不对称性与动物体内铍、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)。这项建议是为了评估等足类的波动不对称性，作为衡量伊利诺伊州芝加哥南部卡卢梅特湖地区六个城市社区危险金属污染的指标。该地区的居民区周围有许多金属污染源，大多数都建在被金属污染的填充材料上，包括：钢铁工业和工业废物、煤/焦灰和污泥。如果成功，我们的方法可能被证明是非常有价值的，作为一种方便、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.