Method and apparatus for detecting environmental pollution by chemicals in aqueous samples using bioindicators

摘要

In this method, the negative chemosensory behaviour of ciliates is used as a measure of chemical pollution by impregnating the end of a cotton bud with sample solution and then immersing it briefly in a test organism suspension. After contact between the ciliates and the sample solution, the organisms which have penetrated into the cotton are washed out in a separate vessel and the number thereof is determined. Ciliates react to even low concentrations of a large number of environmental contaminants with an avoidance and flight behaviour whose intensity is concentration-dependent. Whereas this behaviour impedes the penetration of exposed organisms into the cotton, cells which have been contacted with an unpolluted reference solution collect on the fibrous matrix of the cotton within a few seconds. Comparison with unpolluted control samples permits, on the basis of the cell count, a quantitative measure of the negative chemosensory reaction and thus of the chemical pollution.