Applied Biology (Biomonitor of water quality)

Most economically important cities are located near to coastlines. With this said, these cities play a major role in contamination and disruption of the marine ecosystem. Marine ecosystems have been clarified to have a very dynamic environment and ecosystem; nevertheless, they are fragile to anthropogenic activities (Daby, 2006; Hédouin et al, 2010). Additionally, there are also non-city regions that are undergoing pollution pressures due to mining and dredging activities (Brown & Kumar, 1990; He´douin et al, 2006; Khristoforova et al, 2007). Human-induced activities causes a  runoff of chemicals and heavy metals such as Cromium, Lead, Zinc, Cadmium, Iron, Nickel, Magnesium and Copper (Daby, 2006; Khristoforova et al, 2007; He´douin et al, 2006; Hédouin et al, 2010). These chemicals and heavy metals are non-biodegradable and have a long lasting effect in the marine environment (Hédouin et al, 2010). As this runoff of heavy metals is highly toxic to the marine environment, there was and there still is a strong demand for a monitoring scheme or system to be placed upon critically affected areas (Daby, 2006; Khristoforova et al, 2007; He´douin et al, 2006).

With the urgency of providing a monitoring program, clean and effective monitoring management were developed using bivalves. Biomonitoring approaches are advantageous as compared to direct measurements of water quality using conventional methods, which is a time-integrated assessment (Hédouin et al, 2010). Using biomonitoring methods, a long term and effective build up of chemicals can be detected better as compared to conventional methods of collecting water samples for an extensive period of time and then running laboratory test on them.

There were a couple of marine invertebrates that were previously used for the biomonitoring program; however, bivalves were deemed to be a better choice due to lack of motility, high filtration rate of water and easily accessible accumulation of chemicals and metals in body parts (Brown & Kumar, 1990; Daby, 2006; Khristoforova et al, 2007).

The Pacific Toothed Oyster, Isognomon isognomon was identificed to be among the more successful species of bivalves to be used as a part of the biomonitoring program (Daby, 2006; Hédouin et al, 2010). This was due to its common occurrence, having a high bioconcentration potential and as well as portraying successful utilization in the past (Hédouin et al, 2010; Daby, 2006). Additionally, in recent findings by Global Biodiversity Information Facility Network, this species has an ability to persist in a wider range of environment than previously expected, making this species as an even more attractive choice for biomonitoring programs.