Evidence for the metal resistance of earthworm Eisenia fetida across generations (F1 and F2) under laboratory metal exposure.

J Hazard Mater

College of Resources and Environmental Science, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Organic Farming, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address:

Published: March 2022

Environmental stressors are persistent but most toxicological studies always evaluate the risk via short-term acute toxicity, while continuous toxicity and biological resistance across generations are relatively unknown. Here, earthworm Eisenia fetida was laboratory-reared and exposed to historically contaminated soils with an increasing metal gradient (CK, LM and HM), to investigate cross-generation toxicity and resistance of F1 and F2 worms. The results elucidated that biomass and juvenile hatching rate of F2 E. fetida showed maximum decreases of 20.8% and 38.5% than those of F1, which indicated severer toxicity of earthworm offspring. However, metal bioaccumulation in F2 E. fetida showed maximum increases of 150%, 49.2%, 19.7% and 25.5% than F1 for Cd, Cu, Zn and Pb, respectively. F2 E. fetida suffered less oxidative stress because the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), glutathione (GSH), and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents were basically lower than that of F1. Meanwhile, the detoxification genes of metallothionein and heat shock protein 70 in F2 E. fetida showed maximum of 296% and 78.9% up-regulations, respectively, which suggested greater metal resistance of F2 E. fetida. This study confirmed the cross-generation toxicity and resistance of earthworms, which provides novel insights to reveal specific contaminant risks from longer lifecycles. CAPSULE: Earthworms under cross-generation exposure can develop metal resistance despite suffering worse toxicity effects.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.128006DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

metal resistance
12
fetida maximum
12
earthworm eisenia
8
eisenia fetida
8
cross-generation toxicity
8
toxicity resistance
8
fetida
7
resistance
6
toxicity
6
metal
5

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!