Element Levels in Snakes in South Carolina: Differences Between a Control Site and Exposed Site on the Savannah River Site |
| |
Authors: | J Burger S Murray K F Gaines J M Novak T Punshon C Dixon M Gochfeld |
| |
Institution: | (1) Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, U.S.A.;(2) Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Piscataway, New Jersey, U.S.A.;(3) Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, PO Drawer E, Aiken South Carolina, U.S.A.;(4) Environmental and Community Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey, U.S.A. |
| |
Abstract: | Levels of 18 elements, including lead, mercury, selenium, and uranium, were examined in three species of snakes from an exposed
and reference site on the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in South Carolina. We tested the hypotheses that there
were no differences as a function of species, and there were no difference between the exposed and control site for blood
and muscle (tail) samples for banded water snake (Nerodia fasciata), brown water snake (N. taxispilota) and cottonmouth (Akistrodon piscivorous). The banded water snakes collected were significantly smaller than the other two species. For blood, there were significant
species differences only for barium, copper, selenium, uranium and zinc, while for muscle tissue there were significant interspecific
differences in aluminum, arsenic, barium, cobalt, cesium, copper, iron, lead, mercury, manganese, strontium, vanadium and
zinc, suggesting that muscle tissue in the tail is a better indicator of potential interspecific differences. It is also easier
logistically to collect tail tissue than blood. Where one species had significantly higher levels than the other species in
muscle tissue levels, cottonmouth had higherlevels of five elements (aluminum, cobalt, lead, mercury, vanadium), brown water
snake had two (lead, strontium), and banded water snake had only barium. There were few significant differences between the
control and reference site for levels of blood, but several for muscle tissue. All three species had significantly higher
levels of arsenic and manganese at Tim's Branch than the reference site, and nickel and uranium were significantly higher
for banded watersnake and cottonmouth, the larger species. Individuals with high exposure of one element were exposed to high
levels of other elements. |
| |
Keywords: | bioindicators cottonmouth elements heavy metals water snakes |
本文献已被 PubMed SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|