Evaluating the impact of a fluoropolymer plant on a river macrobenthic community by a combined chemical, ecological and genetic approach

Abstract

Effect-based monitoring is a recommended approach suggested in European Guidelines to assess the response of ecosystem affected by a pollution source, considering the effects at community, population, individual but also at suborganism level. A combined chemical, ecological and genetic approach was applied in order to assess the impact of a fluoropolymer plant on the macrobenthic community of the Northern Italian river Bormida (Piedmont region). The macrobenthic community living downstream of the industrial discharge was chronically exposed to a mixture of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), with perfluorooctanoic acid as the main compound, at concentrations up to several μgL(-1). Ecological assessment proved that the downstream community was not substantially different from that living upstream of the pollution source. The impact on community is not quantifiable with the traditional monitoring methods used for ecological classification under European regulation because macrobenthic communities showed only slight differences in their structure. In order to highlight effects on genetic variability of the native population, a subcellular analysis by using the AFLP (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) genetic technique was applied to genotype of individuals of a selected species (Hydropsyche modesta, Trichoptera) collected in the two sampling sites. Percentage of variation between the two populations was 6.8%, a threshold compatible with a genetic drift induced in the downstream population. The genetic study carried out in field identified a significant divergence between exposed and non-exposed populations, but at present it is not possible to associate this divergence to a specific effect induced by PFAS.

Keywords: Benthic invertebrates; Effect-based monitoring; Genetic selection; PFOA.