Journal Article Epublish 3 citations
PubMed: 34564258 DOI: 10.3390/insects12090818
A Pest or Otherwise? Encounter of (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) with Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Insects 12(9)
Authors: Meng-Wei Shen, Hung-Chuan Chen, Shyi-Tien Chen
Affiliations
- Ph.D. Program in Engineering Science and Technology, College of Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung City 82445, Taiwan.
- Department of Safety, Health and Environmental Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung City 82445, Taiwan.
Abstract
The potential use of invertebrates as bioreactors to treat environmental pollutants is promising and of great interest. Three types of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs), namely pentachlorophenol (PCP), PAHs (naphthalene and phenanthrene) and dieldrin (DLN), were spiked in soil and treated by using larvae, a known pest of coconut trees in southeast Asia, and also the indicators of POP toxicity and the fate and degradability of the ingested POPs were assessed. The larvae were tested at various levels of the POPs and went through an acclimation process. Without acclimation, the tolerance limits of the larvae toward PCP, PAHs and DLN were 200, 100 and 0.1 mg/kg-soil, respectively, yet with acclimation, the tolerance levels increased to 800, 400 and 0.5 mg/kg-soil, respectively. Biodegradation rates of all the tested POPs were >90% by week 2, with <5% and nearly 0% remaining in the feces and body of the larvae, respectively. The results suggest that the use of the beetle larvae in soil POP decontamination is doable.
MeSH
Larva, Soil, Environmental Pollutants, Acclimatization, Persistent Organic Pollutants