CBET Research Group, Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Sarriena Z/g, Leioa, Basque Country, Spain; Research Centre for Experimental Marine Biology and Biotechnology PiE, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Areatza Pasealekua, 48620, Plentzia, Spain.
Research Centre Suðurnes - University of Iceland, Garðvegi 1, IS-245 Suðurnesjabær, Iceland.
Environ Pollut. 2023 Nov 1;336:122454. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122454. Epub 2023 Aug 26.
North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans contain large amount of undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Therefore threat of oil spills and its hazardous ecological consequences are of great importance to the marine environment. Although mussels (Mytilus sp.) respond clearly to contaminants, biomarkers have shown variability linked to biological and environmental changes. In order to help avoiding misinterpretation of biological responses the aim of this study was to reveal the effect of natural variability in the responsiveness to pollution of a battery of cell and tissue-level biomarkers in mussels. Mussels were collected in relatively non-impacted and potentially impacted sites at ports and the vicinity of a waste water treatment plant in Trondheim and Tromsø in autumn of 2016. Although the battery of biomarkers used herein proved to be useful to discriminate impacted and non-impacted mussel populations, some confounding factors altering the biological responses were identified. Geographical/latitudinal factors seemed to be critical regarding the reproductive cycle, reserve material storage and the prevalence of parasites such as Gymnophallus cf. Bursicola trematodes. Mussels from the reference site in Tromsø displayed general stress responses at different levels, which could be influenced by the pathogenic effect of the Gymnophallus cf. Bursicola trematode and by a more advanced gametogenic developmental stage compared to the mussels from Trondheim, which could lead to misinterpretation of the reasons behind the measured stress levels in those mussels. Despite these confounding effects, the use of integrative tools such as IBR index helped to discriminate mussel populations from chemically impacted and non-impacted sites. Overall, this work serves as an anchor point both as a reference of the baseline level values of the analyzed endpoints in the studied geographical area and time of the year, and as an indication of the potential extent of the environmental confounding factors in monitoring programs causing stress on the analyzed mussel populations.
北大西洋和北冰洋蕴藏着大量未被发现的石油和天然气储量。因此，溢油及其危险的生态后果对海洋环境构成了巨大威胁。尽管贻贝（Mytilus sp.）对污染物有明显的反应，但生物标志物的变化与生物和环境变化有关。为了避免对生物反应的误解，本研究的目的是揭示自然变异性对贻贝一系列细胞和组织水平生物标志物对污染反应的影响。贻贝于 2016 年秋季在港口和附近的废水处理厂在特隆赫姆和特罗姆瑟的相对未受影响和潜在受影响的地点采集。尽管本文中使用的生物标志物电池被证明可用于区分受影响和未受影响的贻贝种群，但也确定了一些改变生物反应的混杂因素。地理/纬度因素似乎对生殖周期、储备物质储存和寄生虫（如 Gymnophallus cf. Bursicola 吸虫）的流行起着关键作用。来自特罗姆瑟参考地点的贻贝在不同水平上表现出一般的应激反应，这可能受到 Gymnophallus cf. Bursicola 吸虫的致病作用以及与特隆赫姆的贻贝相比更先进的配子发育阶段的影响，这可能导致对那些贻贝中测量的应激水平背后原因的误解。尽管存在这些混杂因素，但使用综合工具（如 IBR 指数）有助于区分化学受影响和未受影响的贻贝种群。总的来说，这项工作既是研究区域和一年中特定时间分析终点基线水平值的参考点，也是监测计划中导致分析贻贝种群应激的环境混杂因素潜在程度的指示。
