Soil Ingestion May Be an Important Route for the Uptake of Contaminants by Some Reptiles
2009
Rich, C Nelson | Talent, Larry G.
Some species of reptiles regularly ingest soil in the wild. Therefore, we evaluated the importance of soil ingestion as a route for the uptake of contaminants in lizards. We used sand as a substitute for soil during the present study. Different groups of leopard geckos (Eublepharis macularius) were provided with a control and five sodium selenite-spiked sand mixtures during a 28-d study. Twenty lizards were assigned to a control group and to each of five selenium-spiked sand mixtures that consisted of nominal selenium (Se) concentrations of 0.05, 0.46, 4.57, 11.41, and 22.83 mg Se/kg dry sand. Leopard geckos readily ingested the Se-spiked sand. We observed concentration-related effects in several endpoints. Overall growth in body mass was the most sensitive endpoint and was significantly (p < 0.05) lower in lizards that ingested the 4.57, 11.41, and 22.83 mg Se/kg sand mixtures compared to controls. Growth in snout-vent length, mean daily food ingestion, and food conversion efficiency were less sensitive and were significantly (p < 0.05) lower in lizards that ingested the 11.41 and 22.83 mg Se/kg sand mixtures compared to controls. Although our results are based on nominal amounts of Se ingested, leopard geckos appear to be as sensitive to sodium selenite as birds and mammals. The present study suggests that ingestion of soil could be an important potential route for the uptake of soil contaminants in some reptiles and should be evaluated in ecotoxicological studies and risk analyses of reptiles.
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