Monitoring low-level mercury contamination by zebrafish school behavioral responses

Abstract

Abstract Low-level pollution accidents are keeping increasing and difficult to monitor in real time. In our current study, zebrafish are used as a common freshwater model to monitor low-level concentrations of 0.05 mg·L−1 mercuric chloride (HgCl2). Avoidance (swimming increased and closely gathered) was the first response, but those abnormal behaviour just lasted 15~20 min and then recovered to the original level with much more fluctuation. In order to quantitative evaluate the first stress responses of fish exposed to lower concentration of toxicant, entropy is proposed for detecting the first responses. The use of entropy contributed to the reliability and precision for detecting toxicant at lower concentration pollution.