Comparative assessment of invasive and non-invasive approaches for estimating metallic pollutants in the environment

Abstract

Metallic pollutants make an important category of environmental contaminants owing to their capability for bioaccumulation and biomagnification in the living systems. The methods employed for determining their concentrations in the living bodies may be invasive or non-invasive and their outcomes have often been questioned regarding their representativeness of the true exposure to the contaminants. The current study was hence designed to compare the outcomes both invasive and non-invasive methods used for exposure assessment of metallic pollutants in living beings. For this purpose, two common avian species bank myna (Acridotheres ginginianus), and common myna (Acridotheres tristis) were selected due to their high abundance in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Trace metals’ concentrations were detected in their liver, blood and feathers; former two being invasive methods while the latter approach to be non-invasive one. However a poor correlation was found among metallic pollutants in all three organs with lowest concentrations reported from the blood samples. The association between the trace metal concentrations in all organs was also non-significant. It can hence be concluded that no single organ can be a true representative of environmental exposure to metallic pollutants and combined approaches need to be investigated for determining extent of contamination in living bodies.