Should we be bothered?
In the current climate of ever growing public awareness to the increasing negative impact humans are having on the environment, a great deal of attention is being drawn to the oceans. The oceans contain the largest sources of oxygen production and CO2 absorbtion on the planet, thus playing a major role in balancing out the 'greenhouse effect'. It is a delicate ecosystem which must be protected if it is to remain balanced.
In industrialised nations such as here in the UK, the ultimate sink for chemical run-off is the ocean. Estuaries are an interface between the land and the oceans and consequently there is a great input of pollutants through chemical run-off, and dumping via rivers.
If we are to monitor levels of pollutants such as organophophates (eg insecticeides used in farming) and hydrocarbons (from the petrochemical industry) it must be in a way which also monitors the effects they are having on the ecosystem itself.

Why flounder?
Pleuronectid flatfish (eg plaice & flounder) are bottom dwelling species found widely distributed around the UK coastline. The European flounder (Pleuronectes flesus) is an estuarine species which lives and feeds on sediment. As such they are continually exoposed to a variety of chemicals and pollutants which settle there, which makes it an excellent species for use in biomonitoring (the study of living organisms to monitor the environment in which they live).

Why study genetics of flounder?
It is widely documented that responses to pollutants vary greatly between species, and between individuals within a species. In some areas individuals are proven to be resistant to particular polltuants, yet others of the same species would die if exposed to similar doses. One of the major questions in this area is whether resitance to pollutants is aquired through coming into contact with the pollutants directly, or is it a genetic trait inherited from the parents?
The answer to this question has a great bearing on how a particular species can be used to be considered an effective tool in biomonitoring studies.

The current project
We are currently investigating pollutant metabolism in the European flounder through expression of enzyme systems involved in the detoxification of xenobiotics (foreign chemicals not ordinarily found within the body), and particularly how offspring compare to parents (ie if any resistance to pollutants is apparent, is it passed on in the genome from parent to offspring?). The data collected from this project will (hopefully!) contibute to our understanding of the problem, and benefit future biomonitoring programmes using flounder.
 

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