1. Chironomids as Environmental Indicators:Heavy Metals and Deformities Chaleen Shephard May 6, 1999

2. Pollutants Often manmade materials Excesses occur naturally

3. Bioaccumulation Build-up of toxic materials in tissues Magnify in food chain

4. Heavy Metals Chromium Copper Manganese Nickel

5. Chironomids Non-biting Midges Aquatic Insect Larvae 1/2 Inch Two Small Prolegs Found In Sediment Detritivores

6. a b c d e f g Chironomids

7. Indicator Species Large distribution area Variety of habitats Primary food source for many organisms

8. Morphological Testing Deformities in mouthparts, antennae, mandibles Effect of chemical contaminants

9. Flow Line Division, New Castle, Pennsylvania Five sites, Five Subsamples at Each Site Sediment Sample: AA, ICP spectrometry Chironomid Samples Sampled on 10/28/98 and 1/30/99 Sampling

17. Microwave Digester

18. AAICP

20. Mounting Head CapsuleCMCP-9/ CMCP-9AF Medium

21. Classification Normal

22. Classification Class I

23. Classification Class II

24. Classification Class III

25. Statistical Analysis At each site the five subsamples were combined to produce a sufficient sample size

26. Percent Deformity = chironomids at each site with deformed mouthparts divided by the total number of chironomids at that site

27. Toxic Score [No. Class I+2(No. Class II)+3(No. Class III)] X 100 Total Number Of Larvae

28. Concentration of Metals Kruskal-Wallis test (nonparametric alternative to Analysis of Variance) Followed by a distribution- free Multiple Comparisons Test

29. Results p= 0.010

30. Results p= 0.012

31. Results p= 0.013

32. Results p= 0.008

33. Results Correlation

34. Conclusions High concentrations of metals, especially at the outflow pipe No correlation between deformities and concentrations of heavy metals Low numbers of chironomids Lethal concentrations of heavy metals

35. Future Studies Tissue Analysis Laboratory tests Identification of species More samples, more chironomids, quantitative sampling Similar locations