title: Water quality monitoring using abnormal tail-beat frequency of crucian carp.
abstract: Fish are rapidly becoming favored as convenient sentinels for behavioral assays of toxic chemical exposure. Tail-beat frequency (TBF) of fish is highly correlated with swimming speed, which has been used to detect toxicants. Here we examined the effect on TBF of exposure to two chemicals, and evaluated the ability of this novel behavioral parameter to accurately monitor water quality. To further refine our approach, the Wall-hitting rate (WHR) was used to characterize behavioral avoidance after exposure. Overall, exposure to test chemicals at different levels induced significant increase in both behavioral parameters of the red crucian carp during 1-h exposure periods. Furthermore, the TBF achieved better performance as an indicator when it was calculated in cases where the fish hit the tank wall. Collectively, this study demonstrates the capacity of the TBF of fish to assess water quality in a reliable manner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China. Electronic address: czb@zjut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhenbo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Meirong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jiafa
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.affiliation: School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Tasmania, Australia.
authors.forename: Luke
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mirowski
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects; D002347:Carps / Q000502:physiology*; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000032:analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D013550:Swimming / Q000502:physiology*; D013623:Tail / Q000502:physiology*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000633:toxicity*; D060753:Water Quality
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Behavior; Fish; Movement; Tail-beat frequency; Wall-hitting rate; Water toxicology