Assessment of the influence of confounding factors (weight, salinity) on the response of biomarkers in the estuarine polychaete Nereis diversicolor

Abstract

The influences of salinity and body size on biochemical (activities of glutathione-S-transferase, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), acetylcholinesterase and digestive enzymes amylase and CMCase), physiological (feeding and egestion rates, energy reserves) and behavioural (burrowing speed) biomarkers were examined in the infaunal polychaete Nereis diversicolor. Only a few biomarkers were affected, including increased egestion rate and activities of CMCase and LDH at higher salinity, and higher egestion rate in larger worms. These findings reinforce the status of N. diversicolor as a robust sentinel species for estuaries which are environments that are particularly productive but also particularly at risk.

Keywords::

• Biochemical biomarkers
• physiological biomarkers
• behavioural biomarkers

Acknowledgements

J. K. thanks the i3p program of the Spanish National Research Council for supporting her stay at the University of Nantes. Thanks are given to Odile Dedourge-Geffard for training us in the determination of digestive enzyme activity and to anonymous reviewers whose comments helped us to improve the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.