In order to understand accumulation and depuration of microcystins (MCYSTs) in Tilapia rendalli, three experiments with juveniles were done. The experiments simulated the fish diet during a Microcystis aeruginosa bloom in three different situations. In the first one each fish received daily, during 15 days, fish food plus toxic cells of M. aeruginosa (20.4 microg MCYSTs fish(-1) day(-1)). In th...

The black-legged kittiwake preen gland*an overlooked organ for depuration of fat-soluble contaminants? Silje Aakre Solheim, Kjetil Sagerup, Sandra Huber, Ingvar Byrkjedal & Geir Wing Gabrielsen 1 Department of Natural History, University Museum of Bergen, University of Bergen, Allégt. 41 NO-5020, Bergen, Norway 2 Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre, PO Box 6606, Langnes, NO-9296 Tromsø, Norw...

Aerosol from activated mud decontamination plants used for the treatment of urban sewage can represent a vehicle for bacteria, virus and fungi. As a result, they become an infective hazard for plant personnel, the general population residing in the surrounding area and the occasional visitor. The present investigation focuses on the identification of enteric-type viruses in this kind of aerosol...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of mucus production as a biomarker. This was done by exposing the mussel Perna perna to various sublethal concentrations of Cu. Mussels are effective as a bioindicator species as they accumulate Cu in their tissues. Differences in mucus production rates were evaluated at different Cu concentrations. The findings of this study indicate that incre...

We assessed the effectiveness of very high spatial resolution IKONOS imagery for mapping a top invasive woody plant, Pittosporum undulatum, in a Protected Area in S.Miguel Island. We developed a segmentation-based classification scheme. A strong separability between most important land cover classes and a high accuracy in supervised classification maps was achieved. Overall separability improve...

Three organic compounds of different hydrophobicity, 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene (TeCB), 3,4,5,6-tetrachloroguaiacol (TeCG) and 4,6-dichlorobenzenediol (DBD), were chosen as the test chemicals to carry out a series of investigations to look at the relationship between toxicant transfer and fish metabolic rate. A significant correlation was found between the toxicant uptake rate constant (k(1)) a...

Juvenile areolated grouper (Epinephelus areolatus) were exposed to two levels of dietary benzo[a]pyrene (BaP; 0.25-12.5 microg/g body wt/d) for four weeks, followed by four weeks of depuration. Significant increase in hepatic ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) activities was found after one week, preceding an increase in lipopigments (as measured by quantitative transmission electron microscop...