Terrestrial Invertebrates

Soil invertebrates — predatory invertebrates — terrestrial vertebrates —predatory birds or mammals... 

Wishart Ml (2000) The terrestrial invertebrate fauna of a temporary stream in southern Africa. Afr Zool 35 193-200... 

The major routes of uptake of xenobiotics by animals and plants are discussed in Chapter 4, Section 4.1. With animals, there is an important distinction between terrestrial species, on the one hand, and aquatic invertebrates and fish on the other. The latter readily absorb many xenobiotics directly from ambient water or sediment across permeable respiratory surfaces (e.g., gills). Some amphibia (e.g., frogs) readily absorb such compounds across permeable skin. By contrast, many aquatic vertebrates, such as whales and seabirds, absorb little by this route. In lung-breathing organisms, direct absorption from water across exposed respiratory membranes is not an important route of uptake. 

Inevitably, terrestrial invertebrates are susceptible to the toxicity of OPs used in the field. The honeybee is one species of particular importance, and the use of OPs and other insecticides on agricultural land has been restricted to minimize toxicity to this species. One practice has been to avoid application of hazardous chemicals to crops when there are foraging bees. The use of some compounds, for example, triazophos, has been restricted because of very high toxicity to honeybees. 

Pyrethroids show very marked selective toxicity (Table 12.2). They are highly toxic to terrestrial and aquatic arthropods and to fish, but only moderately toxic to rodents, and less toxic still to birds. The selectivity ratio between bees and rodents is 10,000- to 100,000-fold with topical application of the insecticides. They therefore appear to be environmentally safe so far as terrestrial vertebrates are concerned. There are, inevitably, concerns about their possible side effects in aquatic systems, especially on invertebrates. 

Bioaccumulation is the process by which terrestrial organisms such as plants and soil invertebrates accumulate and concentrate pollutants from the soil. Bioaccumula-... 

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