Fish as Biomarkers

How would you determine the effects of an oil spill on a marine environment? Most responses would be to test the level of contaminants in the water. While this test would give the levels how does it relate to the health of the biotic marine life forms? Simply carrying out physical and chemical tests of the abiotic environment is not comprehensive enough to represent the health of the entire marine environment. Coupling these methods with the use of biomarkers is a more comprehensive approach. A biomarker is the biological measure of an organism’s biological state this was a definition given by a doctor (Mandal 2016).

Picture taken from Intech Open

When choosing an organisms or species as a biomarker in oil spill it must be representative of the ecosystem affected. Fishes have both molecular and cellular defense systems to protect them from harmful substances. This includes detoxifying enzymes and molecules which are used to determine the impact of oil on the organism as well as its environment (Sturve, 2014). To get on how the marine ecosystem is progressing in the wake of the oil spill constant testing or monitoring is done on fishes at the location. Also knowing the extent to which the adult fishes were impacted can give an early indication on how future offspring in turn would be impacted. Use of biomarkers or biomonitoring can be done for years to give an idea of how the marine environment is coping long after the spill. In most cases the values given by biomarkers decrease over time indicating that the environment it returning to normalcy.

References

Ananya Mandal 2016. What is a Biomarker, News Medical Life Sciences Retrieved from http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-a-Biomarker.aspx

Joachim Sturve, Lennart Balk, Birgitta liewenborg margaretha Adolfsson-Erici, Lars Forlin and Bethanie and Carney Almroth 2014 Effects of an oil spill in a harbor assessed using biomarkers of exposure in eelpout Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4236613/