Multimarker approach to assess the exposure of the wild rodent Calomys laucha to a simulated crude oil spill.

Abstract

A mysterious oil spill occurred in the ocean near Brazil in 2019, which affected coastal areas in northeastern Brazil. When oil pollution occurs in coastal zones, organisms such as small mammals can suffer deleterious effects to their health. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of exposure to contaminated sandy soil with different crude oil concentrations in males of the species Calomys laucha. The exposure to crude oil resulted in multiple health issues for the subjects in the very first days of exposure. Furthermore, the exposure resulted in mutagenic damage to bone marrow blood cells and behavioral and morphological alterations, which were almost always in a dose-dependent form. The present study demonstrates the sensibility of the biomarkers used and highlights that small wild mammals such as C. laucha are useful for predicting environmental damage caused by the exposure to crude oil.