Assimilation of zinc by Porcellio scaber (Isopoda, Crustacea) exposed to zinc
- Univ. of Ljubijana (Slovenia)
The ability of terrestrial isopods to accumulate high amounts of metals, to survive in industrially polluted areas and respond to environmental contaminants in a dose-dependent manner makes them one of the most favorite experimental organisms for terrestrial ecotoxicology. Understanding metal uptake, assimilation and loss by these animals is important to explain how they cope with polluted environments. Metal uptake depends on the rate of food consumption, on metal availability in the food, on the pH inside the gut and some other factors. Isopods respond to high metal concentrations in the food in different ways and try to avoid the negative effects of metal poisoning. Zinc is one of the metals present in high concentrations in industrially polluted areas. Zinc poisoning may be avoided by the regulation of the consumption rate, by behavioral response, by storing metals in the hepatopancreas as insoluble granules, and by fecal, and possibly urinary, excretion. Zinc in organisms is a constituent of more than 200 metalloenzymes and other metabolic compounds and assures stability of biological molecules and structures. High Zn levels in food cause a reduction of feeding rate, affect growth and reproduction, cause changes in the structure of the digestive glands and influence the duration of the molting cycle. The present study investigated zinc assimilation by Porcellio scaber exposed to leaves contaminated with radioactively labeled zinc at five different concentrations. 17 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs.
- OSTI ID:
- 530897
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, Vol. 58, Issue 5; Other Information: PBD: May 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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