Aquatic macrophytes as bioindicators of metals in water reservoirs in Venezuela

• García, Tomás A. ^[1] ; Ramos Fonseca, Ruth ^[2]
  1. [1] Laboratorio de Comunidades Marinas y Ecotoxicología / CETOXMAR, Simón Bolívar University, Miranda. Postal code 1080
  2. [2] Laboratorio de Comunidades Marinas y Ecotoxicología / CETOXMAR and Organism Biology Department, Simón Bolívar University, Miranda. Postal code 1080
• Localización: Revista Internacional de Contaminación Ambiental, ISSN 0188-4999, Nº. 38, 2022
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In Caracas, Venezuela, the water reservoirs that provide services to the city do not have a monitoring plan, and the concentrations of possible pollutants are unknown. This is of interest, considering that these areas have had uncontrolled growth and suffer from urban discharges; these are potential sources of contaminants such as heavy metals. Under this scenario, the study's objective was to assess the potential of the aquatic macrophytes Eichhornia crassipes  and  Lemna minor  as bioindicators for metal contamination by accumulation. Plants, water, and sediment samples were collected in La Mariposa, Camatagua, and La Pereza reservoirs, at two sampling points per reservoir, three transects per point, and three samples per transect. The concentrations of Pb, Al, Zn, Ni, Cu, and Hg were determined in the mentioned compartments and the bioavailable fraction of sediments with an ICP-OES and DMA-80. The metal content of the analyzed samples was different between the reservoirs (pperm ˂ 0.05). Metal concentrations in  E. crassipes and  L. minor were also different between water reservoirs (pperm ˂ 0.05 and MC to 0.05, respectively). The plants’ metal content had a similar pattern to the concentrations of metals in water, sediments, and bioavailable fraction (p ˂ 0.05). The results suggest that both species are potential bioindicators for metal contamination by accumulation, especially E. crassipes since it is a perennial plant that could reflect environmental quality over a longer period than  L. minor.