So Do not eat too many if starving
Comment on Isopods
jjagaimo@lemmy.ca 7 months agoP. pruinosus could be defined as a macroconcentrator of Cd, Zn, and Cu (BAF > 2) and as a deconcentrator of Pb (BAF < 1).
Since isopods are food source of vertebrate and invertebrate predators, one threat is the transfer and potential accumulation of these contaminants at higher trophic levels. In a regional assessment of the Greater Washington-Baltimore Metropolitan area, Pouyat et al. (2015b) found a positive correlation between lead concentration of soil, isopod body, and blood of American robin (Turdusmigratorius Linnaeus, 1766) nestlings from the same residential yards.
One way is just by keeping the heavy metals (Hg, Cu, Zn, Cd, etc) in their body. Any heavy metals they uptake will remain in their body, and while they’re alive they create more isopods to uptake more metal. But, if they get eaten it can accumulate in other animals or if they die it just returns to the soil. They’re also useful as indicators of soil contamination.
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 7 months ago
FreudianCafe@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Is there any way in wich those metals are effectively/permanently taken out? Like some chemical bond that an animal produces that makes the metal innactive even after the animal decomposes?
AtmaJnana@lemmy.world 7 months ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation#In_nature
FreudianCafe@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Very interesting. Thanks