Extended water starvation: an improved method for sample preparation of Lumbricidae in ecotoxicological studies
1994
Denneman, W.D. (TNO Institute of Spatial Organization, Delft (Netherlands))
The importance of earthworms (Lumbricidae) in the decomposition subsystem of ecosystems and their important role in foodchains is wellknown. Also in ecotoxicological studies earthworms are regularly studied and often used for biomonitoring. In the chemical analysis of earthworms samples one of the major systematic errors which influences the analytical results is caused by the intestinal content of the earthworms. In this study a new method called 'extended water starvation' is described, in an attempt to reduce the influence of the gut contents on the analytical results. The analytical results show that after the generally used method of petri dish starvation of the worms prior to analysis, 7-47% of the destructed dry weight proved to be undissolved anorganic material. After extended water starvation, only 0.1-3.2% undissolved material of the gut contents remained. Also calculations were made to show which percentage of the body burden concentrations of earthworm samples from a Cd contaminated and a reference field site in the Netherlands, is caused by this systematic analytical error
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