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Are soft tissues of urban rats good indicators of exposure to heavy metal pollution? A study conducted in one of the most polluted basins of Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Abstract

The overall goal of this work was to analyze the relationship between the concentration of lead in the kidney, liver, and stomach contents of rats captured in a polluted urban basin and the concentration of this metal in the environment, meteorological factors, and different intrinsic characteristics of the individuals. To this end, we determined the concentration of lead in the kidney, liver, and stomach contents of 133 Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) captured in the Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin (Buenos Aires, Argentina). This basin is one of the most severe cases of water pollution in Latin America and metals like lead represent the most common chemical pollutants. Rats were trapped in nine sites with different soil and water lead concentrations, between 2014 and 2015. A positive relationship was found between lead concentration in the liver and kidney of R. norvegicus and the environmental concentration of this metal in water and soil. Although the remaining variables analyzed were also related to the lead concentration in soft tissues, they did not affect the association between the lead concentration in soft tissues and that in the environment. The lead concentration in the stomach contents was not related to any of the variables analyzed. Our results constitute the first study in an urban basin with a gradient of environmental lead concentration and suggest that the quantification of lead in the kidney and liver of rats can be used as an indicator of exposure to this metal within a large city.

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Acknowledgments

We are especially grateful to the team of Laboratorio de Ecología de Roedores Urbanos for their assistance during the field sampling, to the National Meteorological Service and ACUMAR for the data provided that were used to perform the analysis of this paper, and to Pamela Tripodi and Raúl Gil for your help in the chemical analysis. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, editor, and Victoria Gonzalez Eusevi for reading and providing useful comments on drafts of the manuscript.

Funding

Financial support was provided by Universidad de Buenos Aires, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina), and Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.

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  1. Laboratorio de Ecología de Roedores Urbanos, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, IEGEBA (CONICET-UBA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, Ciudad Universitaria, Núñez, C1428EGA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Mariel A. Tripodi, Emiliano Muschetto, Gerardo Cueto, Diego Hancke & Olga Suárez

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  1. Mariel A. Tripodi
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Correspondence to Mariel A. Tripodi.

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Tripodi, M.A., Muschetto, E., Cueto, G. et al. Are soft tissues of urban rats good indicators of exposure to heavy metal pollution? A study conducted in one of the most polluted basins of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Environ Monit Assess 192, 349 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08300-7

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