Heavy Metal Pollutants and Chemical Ecology: Exploring New Frontiers

Heavy metals are an important class of pollutants with both lethal and sublethal effects on organisms. The latter are receiving increased attention, as these may have harmful ecological outcomes. For example, recent explorations of heavy metals in freshwater habitats reveal that they can modify chemical communication between individuals, resulting in “info-disruption” that can impact ecological relationships within and between species. Info-disruption can affect animal behavior and social structure, which in turn can modify both intraspecies and interspecies interactions. In terrestrial habitats, info-disruption by metals is not well studied, but recent demonstrations of chemical signaling between plants via both roots and volatile organic molecules provide potential opportunities for info-disruption. Metals in terrestrial habitats also can form elemental plant defenses, in which they can defend a plant against natural enemies. For example, hyperaccumulation of metals by terrestrial plants has been shown to provide defensive benefits, although in almost all known cases the metals are not anthropogenic pollutants but are naturally present in soils inhabited by these plants. Info-disruption among microbes is another arena in which metal pollutants may have ecological effects, as recent discoveries regarding quorum sensing in bacteria provide an avenue for metals to affect interactions among bacteria or between bacteria and other organisms. Metal pollutants also may influence immune responses of organisms, and thus affect pathogen/host relationships. Immunomodulation (modification of immune system function) has been tied to some metal pollutants, although specific metals may boost or reduce immune system function depending on dose. Finally, the study of metal pollutants is complicated by their frequent occurrence as mixtures, either with other metals or with organic pollutants. Most studies of metal pollutants focus on single metals and therefore oversimplify complex field conditions. Study of pollutant impacts on chemical ecology also are difficult due to the necessity of studying effects at varying ecological scales: “dynamic scaling” of chemical ecology studies is rarely done completely. It is clear that much remains to be learned about how heavy metal pollution impacts organisms, and that exciting new research frontiers are available for experimental exploration.