Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T21:41:00.372Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Wildlife Community of Iona Island Jetty, Vancouver, B.C., and Heavy-metal Pollution Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

David A. Brown
Affiliation:
Respectively staff members and Professor, Institute of Oceanography, University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Carole A. Bawden
Affiliation:
Respectively staff members and Professor, Institute of Oceanography, University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Kenneth W. Chatel
Affiliation:
Respectively staff members and Professor, Institute of Oceanography, University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Timothy R. Parsons
Affiliation:
Respectively staff members and Professor, Institute of Oceanography, University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Extract

Marine and terrestial animals have been shown to be particularly abundant in a wildlife community associated with a marine sewer outfall from the City of Vancouver. These same animals are contaminated with high levels of heavy-metals but are apparently protected from their poisonous effects by the production of a protein known as metallothionein. The amount of metallothionein and heavy-metal loading appears to depend primarily on the degree of pollution and secondly on the species of animal and its position in the food-web.

Type
Main Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bremner, I. (1974). Heavy metal toxicities. Quart. Rev. Biophys., 7, pp. 75124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cloud, P. (1974). Evolution of ecosystems. Amer. Sci., 62, pp. 5466.Google Scholar
Friedberg, F. (1974). Effects of metal binding on protein structure. Quart. Rev. Biophys., 7, pp. 1–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District (1974). Environmental studies at Iona Island. Dept No. 2, prep. B.C. Research: 162 pp. (mimeogr.).Google Scholar
Norberg, G. F. (1972). Cadmium metabolism and toxicity. Environ. Physiol. Biochem., 2, pp. 736.Google Scholar
Olafson, R. W. & Thompson, J. A. J. (1974). Isolation of heavy-metal-binding proteins from marine vertebrates. Mar. Biol., 28, pp. 83–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, G. & Levings, C. D. (1975). Distribution of macro-invertebrates on mud-flats influenced by sewage, Fraser River estuary, British Columbia. Tech. Rept No. 476, Fish. Mar. Serv., Environment Canada: 63 pp. (mimeogr.).Google Scholar
Parsons, T. R., Bawden, C. A. & Heath, W. A. (1973). Preliminary survey of mercury and other metals contained in animals from the Fraser River mud-flats. J. Fish. Res. Bd Canada, 30, pp. 1014–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piotrowski, J. K., Trojanowska, B., Wisniewska-Knypl, J. M. & Bolanowska, W. (1973). Further investigations on binding and release of mercury in the rat. Pp. 247–63 in Mercury, Mercurials and Mercaptans (Ed. Miller, M. W. & Clarkson, T. U.). Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois: 386 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Piscator, M. (1964). On cadmium in normal human kidneys together with a report on the isolation of metallothionein from livers of cadmium-exposed rabbits. N. Hyg. Tidskr., 45, pp. 76–82.Google Scholar
Shaikh, Z. A. & Lucis, O. J. (1971). Isolation of cadmium-binding proteins. Experimentia, 27, pp. 1024–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Webb, M. (1972). Binding of cadmium ions by rat liver and kidney. Biochem. Pharmac, 21, pp. 2751–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, D. R. (1971). The Metals of Life. Van Nostrand Reinhold, London: 172 pp.Google Scholar
Winge, D., Kanso, J. & Colucci, A. V. (1973). Cadmium accumulation in rat liver: correlation between bound metal and pathology. Pp. 500–2 in Trace Element Metabolism in Animals—2 (Ed. Hoekstra, W. G., Suttie, J. W., Ganther, H. E. & Mertz, W.). University Park Press, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin: 853 pp., illustr.Google Scholar