News & Events
New article in Journal of Crustacean Biology by Dr Tim Sullivan and Irene O'Callaghan!
MESA Principal Investigator, Dr Tim Sullivan, and PhD candidate, Irene O'Callaghan, have co-authored a recent publication, entitled Shedding the load: moulting as a cause of variability in whole-body metal concentrations. This article demonstrates how moulting can induce a significant variability in measured accumulated pollutant concentrations in aquatic biota. The study is forthcoming in The Crustacean Society's Journal of Crustacean Biology, published by Oxford Journals.
The full article can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jcbiol/ruaa077
Abstract
Moulting is a biological process shared by aquatic macroinvertebrates, but while the exoskeleton is believed to be a major sink of metal pollutants, the contribution of the moulting of the crustacean exoskeleton to total accumulated metal concentrations is insufficiently considered. We present a conceptual, qualitative model that illustrates the impact of moulting on the whole-body burden of an unspecified metal analyte in a hypothetical moulting invertebrate. The model demonstrates that moult stage is a contributor to the whole-body pollutant concentration, and that this introduces a temporal component even in steady-state exposure conditions. The applicability of this model is illustrated by comparison to published results of pre- and post-moult accumulations. A solution for reducing this variability in the measurement of whole-body metal concentrations is presented, and its potential application to both ex-situ and in-situ studies of biomonitor species is discussed.