Studies of the possibility of measuring changes in environmental pollution with the pixe method using moths as a monitor.
The possibility has been investigated of using the PIXE method to yield long and reliable time series for indicating changes in the environment, with moths or butterflies as a sample target. The suitability of this approach was demonstrated by studying standard deviations of measurements of single moths and those of populations of moths. The properties of targeting at different anatomical sites were investigated and the wing gave the most stable results, perhaps because its metabolic development is completed at the imago (newborn butterfly) stage. According to test measurements of different populations it seems possible to use moth or butterfly wing measurements to study environmental changes over the past century or so using moth or butterfly collections.
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Siltavuorenpenger 20 D, 00170, Helsinki, Finland.
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