Abstract
Survival of organisms in polluted habitats is a key factor regarding their long-term population persistence. To avoid harmful physiological effects of pollutants’ accumulation in organisms, decontamination and excretion could be effective mechanisms. Among invertebrates, ground beetles are reliable indicators of environmental pollution. Published results, however, are inconsistent, as some studies showed effective decontamination and excretion of pollutants, while others demonstrated severe toxic symptoms due to extreme accumulation. Using ground beetles as model organisms, we tested our pollution intensity-dependent disposal hypothesis for five pollutants (Cd, Cu, Mn, Pb, and Zn) among four soil pollution intensity levels (low, moderate, high, and extreme) by categorical meta-analysis on published data. According to our hypothesis, decontamination and excretion of pollutants in ground beetles are effective in lowly or moderately polluted habitats, while disposal is ineffective in highly or extremely polluted ones, contributing to intense accumulation of pollutants in ground beetles. In accordance with the hypothesis, we found that in an extremely polluted habitat, accumulation of Cd and Pb in ground beetles was significantly higher than in lowly polluted ones. These findings may suggest the entomoremediation potential of ground beetles in an extremely polluted environment.
Highlights
Habitat pollution poses a huge risk to organisms because of the direct and/or indirect contact with the contaminated environment (Ciadamidaro et al 2017; Touceda-González et al 2017)
The literature search yielded 72 publications, out of which, after checking their reference sections, six papers were found that reported metal (Cd, Cu, Mn, Pb, and Zn) concentrations (± SD with sample sizes) in one or more ground beetle species from both unpolluted and polluted habitats (Supplementary Materials Table A.1)
Based on pollution index (PI) calculations, data were available from habitats with low and extreme pollution intensities for Mn and Pb; moderate and extreme pollution intensities for Cd; low, high, and extreme pollution intensities for Zn; and low, moderate, high, and extreme pollution intensities for Cu
Summary
Habitat pollution poses a huge risk to organisms because of the direct and/or indirect contact with the contaminated environment (Ciadamidaro et al 2017; Touceda-González et al 2017). Responses of organisms to the metal pollution are greatly dependent on species and several other factors, such as form and concentration of metals, time of exposure, and pH conditions, which are closely related to the bioavailability of metals (Ashraf et al 2012; Jaishankar et al 2014; Rengel 2015). Species that are able to indicate changes in environmental conditions like elevated metal concentrations are called bioindicators (Uehara-Prado et al 2009; Parmar et al 2016). This potential can manifest itself as the absence or presence of species, or as altered physiological and/or morphological characteristics (Bednarska et al 2016). In metal-polluted environments, these possible responses are usually coupled with increased metal concentrations in tissues (Khan et al 2015; Tőzsér et al 2017; Papp et al 2018; Mukhtorova et al 2019)
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