Biomonitor 1876366 93139527 2006-12-09T12:58:00Z Tevildo 383280 Removed link to "biological" disambig page - "Organism" is already here. A biological [[monitor]], or '''biomonitor''', is defined as an [[organism]] that provides [[quantitative]] information on the quality of [[the environment]] around it. Therefore, a good biomonitor will indicate the presence of the pollutant and also attempt to provide additional information about the amount and intensity of the exposure.<br/> A '''bioindicator''' is an organism or biological response that reveals the presence of the pollutants by the accurance of typical symptoms or measurable responses, and is therefore more [[qualitative]]. These organisms (or communities of organisms) deliver information on alterations in the environment or the quantity of environmental [[pollutant]]s by changing in one of the following ways: [[physiological]]ly, [[chemical]]ly or [[behavioural]]ly. The information can be deduced through the study of: #their content of certain [[Chemical element|element]]s or [[Chemical compound|compound]]s #their [[Morphology (biology)|morphological]] or [[Cell (biology)|cellular structure]] #[[metabolic]]-[[biochemical]] processes #behaviour, or #[[population]] structure(s) The importance and relevance of biomonitors, rather than man-made equipment, is justified by the statement: :"There is no better indicator of the status of a species or a system than a species or system itself" - ''Tingey (1989)'' The use of a biomonitor is described as '''''biological monitoring''''' (''abbr.'' biomonitoring) and is the use of the properties of an organism to obtain information on certain aspects of the biosphere. Biomonitoring of air pollutants can be [[passive]] or [[active]]. Passive methods observe plants growing naturally within the area of interest. Active methods detect the presence of air pollutants by placing test plants of known response and [[genotype]] into the study area. [[Bioaccumulation|Bioaccumulative]] [[indicators]] are frequently regarded as biomonitors. There are several types of natural biomonitors, including [[moss]]es, [[lichen]]s, [[bark|tree bark]], bark pockets, [[tree ring]]s, [[leaves]], and [[fungi]]. ==References== *Bohm (1998) *Gorecki (2002) *Madejon ''et al'' (2004) *Mulgrew and Williams (2000) *Tingey (1989) *Wolterbeek ''et al'' (2001) [[Category:Biology]]