Weakly electric fish for biomonitoring water quality

Environmental pollution is a major issue that calls for suitable monitoring systems. The number of possible pollutants of municipal and industrial water grows annually as new chemicals are developed. Technical devices for pollutant detection are constructed in a way to detect a specific and known array of pollutants. Biological systems react to lethal or non-lethal environmental changes without pre-adjustment, and a wide variety have been employed as broad-range monitors for water quality. Weakly electric fish have proven particularly useful for the purpose of biomonitoring municipal and industrial waters. The frequency of their electric organ discharges directly correlates with the quality of the surrounding water and, in this way, concentrations of toxicants down to the nanomolar range have been successfully detected by these organisms. We have reviewed the literature on biomonitoring studies to date, comparing advantages and disadvantages of this test system and summarizing the lowest concentrations of various toxicants tested. Eighteen publications were identified investigating 35 different chemical substances and using six different species of weakly electric fish.

环境污染是亟待构建适配性监测体系的重大议题。随着新型化学品不断研发问世，市政与工业水体中潜在污染物的种类逐年递增。当前的污染物检测技术设备仅能针对特定已知类别的污染物开展检测。生物系统可无需预先适配即对致死或非致死性环境变化做出响应，其中诸多类群已被用作水质广谱监测工具。弱电场鱼（Weakly electric fish）已被证实可高效应用于市政与工业水体的生物监测工作：其电器官放电频率与周边水体质量直接相关，借此这些生物可成功检测至纳摩尔级浓度的有毒物质。本文综述了迄今已发表的生物监测相关研究文献，对比了该测试系统的优劣，并汇总了各类受试有毒物质的最低检测浓度。本次综述共纳入18篇相关文献，共涉及35种不同化学物质，且均采用了6种不同的弱电场鱼物种。