Animal indicators of adverse effects associated with air pollution

The possibilities for using animal indicators for air pollution studies are reviewed. Three major problems are discussed: bioconcentration of trace el ements, alterations of physiological parameters, and genotoxic effects. Sen tinel species seem to be useful bioaccumulators of environmental trace elem ents and may be the first choice for detecting pollutants whenever there is a high affinity between the pollutant and a specific animal tissue. Also m etallothionein levels of different invertebrate organisms has been shown to be a very sensitive indicator of metal pollution. The assessment of the pu lmonary functions, the regulation of airway caliber, and mucociliary cleara nce in animals exposed to polluted urban air is presented and their advanta ges for estimating physiological damages induced by air pollution are advoc ated. Considering the availability of easy techniques to evaluate genetic d amage, sentinel species have proven to be an attractive approach to detect genotoxic effects in all kinds of environmental pollution. A continuous eff ort of the scientific community is necessary to establish the importance of animal sentinel studies on the process of evaluating risks and formulating regulatory procedures.