This study aimed at relating the abundance and diversity of invertebrate communities of urban soils to chemical and physical soil characteristics and to identify the taxa most sensitive or tolerant to soil stressors. The invertebrate community of five urban soils in Naples, Italy, was sampled. To assess soil quality invertebrate community indices (Shannon, Simpson, Menhinick and Pielou indices)...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) microarrays provide a means to assess genome-wide expression patterns after exposure of an organism to different xenobiotics. Potential uses for this technology include identification of unknown toxicants, assessment of toxicity of new compounds, and characterization of the cellular mechanisms of toxicant action. Here we describe another use of DNA microarrays in tox...

The GSTs of M. edulis provide an easily assayed activity which would be expected to respond to changes in pollution status. The main GST and a related GSH-binding protein have been purified and biochemically characterized. The former protein is most similar to the Pi class while the latter is a catalytically inactive monomer which appears to be related to the Mu class. This enzyme activity has ...

BACKGROUND The direct and close relationship between fish consumption and blood and hair mercury (Hg) levels is well known, but the influence of fish consumption on inorganic mercury in blood (B-IHg) and in urine (U-Hg) is unclear. OBJECTIVE Examine the relationship between fish consumption, total, inorganic and organic blood Hg levels and urinary Hg concentration. METHODS A cross-sectional...

Organisms used in risk assessment of pesticides must be the most sensitive ones to pesticides exposure. The aim of this study was to observe the effect of two commercial pesticide products (containing glyphosate and tolylfluanid) to larval stages of parasites Cooperia curticei, Ostertagia circumcincta, Haemonchus contortus and Trichostrongylus axei. There were two concentrations tested for each...

Water mites are aquatic arachnids that have been used in Europe and Central America as bioindicators of ecological health various freshwater ecosystems (including bogs). can be found high densities the Laurentian Great Lakes adjacent habitats. Although they abundant, water generally not assessment habitats usually assigned to “other” category macroinvertebrate assessments. This is despite evide...

Shallow tropical marine ecosystems are under great anthropogenic pressure due to habitat destruction, overfishing, shrimping, climate change, and tourism. This is an issue of global concern as such environments hold a tremendous biodiversity much which remains be described. The present situation urgently calls for time- resource-efficient methods identify delineate the most valuable remaining a...