Abstract
Nowadays, stormwater sedimentation ponds are popular in stormwater management because of their ability to mitigate flooding and treat polluted runoff from e.g. roads. In addition, they may provide other ecosystem services such as biodiversity. These man-made habitats will inevitably be polluted and the organisms living therein may be negatively affected by the chemical cocktail present in both the water and sediment compartments. The present study explored DNA damage in dragonfly nymphs (Odonata, Anisoptera) living in highway sedimentation ponds in comparison with natural ponds. The concentrations of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), alkylated PAHs and metals were also determined in sediment samples from the different ponds. The results showed that DNA damage was significantly higher in dragonfly nymphs living in sedimentation ponds compared to nymphs living in natural ponds. DNA damage was also highly and significantly correlated with the pollution levels in the sediment, i.e., PAH and Zinc. Finally, we report the concentrations of various alkylated PAHs which appeared to be very dominant in the sedimentation ponds. Our results show that there may be a conflict between the sedimentation ponds’ primary function of protecting natural water bodies from polluted runoff and their secondary function as habitats for organisms. Overall, we suggest that this must be considered when planning and designing stormwater measures.
Highlights
Road transportation, transporting humans and goods, are essential in day to day modern life
The concentrations of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the sedimentation ponds in the present study are comparable with the highest concentrations found in other Norwegian sedimentation ponds[18,31]
The strong petrogenic signal in our study is slightly contradictory to Richter-Brockmann and Achten[34] who measured parental PAHs and alkylated PAHs in different environmental matrices including traffic impacted urban soil samples from Germany
Summary
Road transportation, transporting humans and goods, are essential in day to day modern life. Typical examples of pollutants from roads and traffic are particles, nutrients (nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P)), metals (e.g. copper (Cu), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), zinc (Zn)) and metalloids (arsenic (As), antimony (Sb)), road salt (sodium chloride (NaCl)) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)[3,4,5]. Several of the compounds generally detected in highway runoff sedimentation ponds (like metals and PAHs) are known to induce DNA-damage through various mechanisms including oxidative stress and formation of DNA adducts, which in turn can lead to DNA strand breaks[26]. FPG, which is a DNA repair enzyme, removes the altered bases and leaves AP sites which are converted to breaks by an associated AP lyase activity or by the high pH used to unwind the DNA28 This additional step in the comet assay relates DNA damage to oxidative stress mechanisms[29]. The level of DNA damage in insects that inhabit natural sites has rarely been evaluated
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