Preliminary Study of Effects of Military Obscurant Smokes on Flora and Fauna During Field and Laboratory Exposures

摘要

Since continued routine use of obscurant smokes could be detrimental to the native flora and fauna of training sites, a preliminary biological and chemical study of smokes was conducted to determine whether tests could be developed to demonstrate measurable changes in organisms exposed to smokes and to evaluate whether short exposures to smokes produced measurable changes in the organisms tested. Fog oil, hexachloroethane, and tank diesel smokes were tested. Tradescantia clones were examined for mutagenic effects indicated by micronuclei induction in developing pollen and pink somatic mutations in stamen hairs. Photosynthetic perturbations were measured in Tradescantia and Ambrosia dumosa using variable fluorescence induction. Animals were examined for sister chromatid exchanges and chromosome aberrations. It was found that all of the smokes tested exerted varying degrees of physiological and mutagenic effects in one or several of the assay systems at one or more of the exposure distances. These studies indicate that exposed ecological systems, of at least components of these systems, are at a higher risk than are control organisms for several types of damage attributed to obscurant smoke exposure. Native rodents; Perognathus formosus; Peromyocus crinitus; Dipodomys deserti; Dipodomys merriami; Neotoma lepeda.