What types of pollution or stresses can meiofauna be used to assess ?
A. It may sound too good to be true, but meiofanal analyses have proved to be valuable to our customers in nearly all our contaminant monitoring studies worldwide. They are extremely abundant and highly diverse in terrestrial and aquatic environments and include species that are the last to disappear as conditions deteriorate and the first to reappear conditions improve again. Their community structures have allowed us to examine and describe physical disturbance, changes in nutrient status, changes resulting from altered freshwater flows from catchments due to drought conditions and/or increased water abstraction (e.g. in the Thames estuary, England) and to monitor and assess prevailing environmental conditions in sites contaminated with heavy metals, trace metals, metalloids and a spectrum of organic compounds including PAHs, halogenated hydrocarbons (PCBs, CHCs and pesticides) as well as oils + petrochemicals and their derivatives.
