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Review
. 2005 Feb;113(2):186-91.
doi: 10.1289/ehp.6934.

Use of ecotoxicological tools to evaluate the health of New Bedford Harbor sediments: a microbial biomarker approach

Timothy Ford  1 , Jenny Jay, Anand Patel, Molly Kile, Phanida Prommasith, Tamara Galloway, Ross Sanger, Karen Smith, Mike Depledge
Affiliations
Review

Use of ecotoxicological tools to evaluate the health of New Bedford Harbor sediments: a microbial biomarker approach

Timothy Ford et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Feb.

Abstract

We have been investigating microbial communities in sediments from New Bedford Harbor (NBH), Massachusetts, USA, for a number of years. NBH is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-designated Superfund site heavily contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and heavy metals. Microorganisms are thought to contribute to the fate and distribution of contaminants in NBH through a variety of mechanisms, including direct transformations and formation of soluble and insoluble species. Our more recent research has focused on changes in microbial community structure and function in response to exposure to toxic contaminants, with the ultimate goal of using microbes as ecotoxicological tools. Microbial diversity, as measured by restriction fragment-length polymorphism analysis, changes along pollution gradients, with an apparent increase in diversity at the most contaminated sites, concomitant with an increase in genetic relatedness. Current work on microbial communities examines the presence of arsenic-resistance genes in NBH isolates. In collaboration with the Plymouth Environmental Research Center, Plymouth University, United Kingdom, we have also used more conventional ecotoxicological approaches to examine the health of the NBH biota.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. General model of the toxic risks of the remediation products of contaminated sites.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Map of New Bedford Harbor sites.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Metals in New Bedford Harbor. Figure adapted from Ford et al. (1998).
Figure 4
Figure 4. Examples of unique RFLP patterns from New Bedford Harbor area sediments. M designates the marker standard. The 684 base-pair fragment present in all lanes was generated as a result of RSA1 endonuclease digestion of the pCRII vector and used as an internal reference. Figure modified from Sorci et al. (1999).
Figure 5
Figure 5. Electrophoresis gels showing PCR-amplified products of arsA, arsB, and arsC in (A) genomic and (B) plasmid DNA extracts of As-resistant New Bedford Harbor isolates. Numbers refer to specific isolates listed in Table 2.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Atlantic ribbed mussels were used as the bioindicator organism for New Bedford Harbor. Their heart rate was monitored using an infrared heart rate monitor attached to the surface of the mussel’s shell. Photograph courtesy of Ross Sanger, University of Plymouth.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Mussel tissue burdens of PCBs, PAHs, and selected metals (Hg, Cd, Ni, Pb, Cu, As). Figure adapted from Galloway et al. (2002).
Figure 8
Figure 8. Examples of RAMP assays applied to Atlantic ribbed mussels from New Bedford Harbor. Figure adapted from Galloway et al. (2002).
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