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Applications of biomarker paragraph

Ecotoxicology:

Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, raised the issue of using organochlorine pesticides and discussed the possible negative effects that said pesticides have on living organisms. Her book raised ethical issues against chemical corporations that were controlling the general reception of the effect of pesticides on the environment, which pioneered the need for ecotoxicological studies. Ecotoxicologial studies could be considered the precursors to biomarker studies. Biomarkers are used to indicate an exposure to or the effect of xenobiotics which are present in the environment and in organisms. The biomarker may be an external substance itself (e.g. asbestos particles or NNK from tobacco), or a variant of the external substance processed by the body (a metabolite) that usually can be quantified.

studies on river and lake pollution using biomarkers^^

Due to the chemical nature of river pollution, chemical biomarkers are being used to study populations of organisms in water ecosystems. Chemical biomarkers consist of direct detection of toxic substances, as well as the observation of biochemical processes within studied organisms. These biochemical processes include measurements such as metabolic rate, enzyme production, and oxygen synthesis.

Applications in ecology:

Already written on page : A biomarker can be any kind of molecule indicating the existence, past or present, of living organisms. In the fields of geology and astrobiology, biomarkers, versus geomarkers, are also known as biosignatures. The term biomarker is also used to describe biological involvement in the generation of petroleum. Biomarkers were used in the geo-chemical investigation of an oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, California in 1988. On April 22–23 around 400,000 gallons of crude oil was accidentally released into the San Joaquin Valley by a refinery and manufacturing complex of the Shell Oil Company. The oil affected many surrounding areas. Samples of the crude oil were collected in the various regions where it had spread and compared to samples that were unreleased in an attempt to distinguish between the spilled oil and the petrogenic background present in the spill area. Mass Spectra was performed to identify biomarkers and cyclic aliphatic hydrocarbons within the samples. Variations in the concentration of constituents of the crude oil samples and sediments were found